Defining & Finding Balance

Derek Thompson in a February 2019 Atlantic article, writes, “Workism is the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose.”

Work has not always been revered. It was once simply a means to an end, and the wealthier people became, the less they had to work, so the less they did work. Today, work has morphed into a kind of religion, promising identity, transcendence, and community. Sadly, it falls short on all three counts. Americans, “work longer hours, have shorter vacations, get less in unemployment, disability, and retirement benefits, and retire later than people in comparably rich societies,” wrote Samuel P. Huntington in Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity.

Why do we accept, and even brag about working so much? Nearly half of employed Americans (48%) consider themselves “workaholics,” although many don’t consider this a bad thing. We might be burnt out, exhausted, in failing relationships, and in poor health, but we justify all this in the name of working harder to earn more money. The problem with this logic is that working extremely hard does not guarantee huge monetary success. Sure, it ups the odds a bit, but we often overlook the fact that huge monetary success doesn’t ensure happiness. Workers who do strike it big are often left flailing to articulate why…