<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/20/work-has-conquered-every-day-of-the-week-how-do-we-remain-human-in-a-world-that-worships-toil>
"The best advice I’ve ever heard about rest also feels the most impossible: put
it in your diary before anything else. Schedule it in, as deliberately as you
would any other activity, before work colonises your entire consciousness. Like
that TikTok user who started seeing an overstuffed Outlook calendar in random
places, including the boxy pattern on an upholstered train seat.
Left unchecked, work will rule your life.
Which isn’t to say work is bad in and of itself. It’s good for us in an
entirely non-“eat your vegetables” sense. It’s a means of providing for
ourselves and those we love. Whether or not you love your work, paid and
unpaid, for those of us who are able to work, it’s a route to dignity and
skill, and a necessary contribution to the common good.
But the good of work gets warped in a 24/7 global economy where productivity
tools and wall-to-wall wifi mean you never need stop working. If money never
sleeps then nor, it seems, need you.
Plus, if (like me) you live in Sydney, you know the place demands endless
hustle. The cost of living is biting? Get a second job, said the former Reserve
Bank of Australia governor. Want to own a home? In the second-most expensive
property market in the world (after Hong Kong), some say you’ll need to earn
$250,000 a year to afford a typical dwelling.
In this city of strivers, if you’re not working yourself to death, are you even
alive?
These anti-human conditions point to an unnerving spiritual possibility. For
Jonathan Malesic, the author of
The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and
How to Build Better Lives, we need to tame the “demon” of work.
“The ceaseless, obsessive American work ethic,” Malesic writes, is actually a
kind of
demon haunting him and just about everyone else. “We are a society
almost totally under its power.”
Sounds extreme until you consider the demand for constant productivity, our
obsession with efficiency and optimisation, and how we value people based on
their employment status. The fact that workaholism is so socially acceptable,
even if overwork hollows us out.
But is the d-word metaphorical? One can only hope."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
