Work, Identity, and Society: Smashing the Grind Stone

It is not uncommon to run across a podcast, radio program, or television show, whatever your preferred method of information consumption happens to be, wondering aloud about the seeming hyperactive prominence that work has assumed in our lives. Indeed, it seems like westerners work more than ever and that those from developing countries who have not yet attained a level affluence work hours that simply boggle the mind.

Many, if not most, of us have grown up with the notion that hard work and perseverance are the marks of success and that it is working hard at a suitable job is what one needs to do in order to achieve the good life. The undermining effects of the current world economy aside, that notion of hard work remains relatively true to this day. But there is an element to our working lives that seems to have changed to some degree in more recent decades that accounts for the seeming hyperactivity of work life and actually actively undermines the good life that one is able to enjoy one, even when attainment has been realized. That element is the degree to which we no longer simply ascribe to the maxim of hard work, but choose to be totally defined by our work, to in fact have our lives become our work.

It has long been argued that good work or a satisfying occupation is a key element in a purposeful life. As E.D. mentions in his post on rethinking prosperity,

Hard work is good for us.   It can stave off boredom; it keeps us fit and gives us purpose.  There is a reason we term it our calling or occupation.

To be sure, working hard and doing well at one’s job does have a satisfaction all its own that can be a very productive force in the context of a life. But, our tendency to view work as the very life we lead, as opposed to the activity in which we voluntarily engage in order to derive an income to live a life of substance and happiness seems to have the overwhelming impact of ironically negating the good life that we had originally sought work to achieve. Workaholism due to complete immersion is rapidly moving from a side line quirk of the over-achiever, to a wide-spread national pass time leaving a trail of disconnected and hollowed-out homes and families in its wake. If such a family contains only one bread-winnner who views their work as the primary purpose for existing it is lucky, more often than not families are made up of twinned workaholics whose refrain against facing the reality of what their near pathological work identification puts their families and themselves through is that they work as hard as they do for their family.

The truth of the matter, of course, is that most families would be much happier and much better off generally speaking by giving up the extra couple of hundred dollars that those weekend hours in the office produce. When it comes to the benefits of workaholism, it is generally a perceived boost in the self-confidence that the workaholic him or herself is actually after, generally sacrificing their own base happiness in the process by eating away at the ability to live the good life they’ve worked so hard to materialize.

I say this as someone who has for the past seven years operated as a workaholic committed to realizing the greater good, perhaps the most dangerous type of workaholic out there — wrapped as we are in the banner of our own martyrdom. For the past number of years I have sought out and only worked jobs that largely defined who I was and therefore demanded a great deal from me. Granted I have been able to walk around with a sense of satisfaction and often have preened over my given profession when asked “what I do.” But for all my haughtiness, I have also felt constantly tired, stressed out, distracted, and consumed, a shadow participating in my own life and harbouring a deep and abiding intution that there was something more that I was missing out on.

My latest professional foray is one to which I give a great deal of my efforts and at which I seek to excel. But at the end of the day,  it is a job, not my life, not my identity; it is a perfectly acceptable source of income that allows me to live the life that in many senses has been patiently waiting for my return. And this, I think is the trick: to realize that there is inherently nothing wrong with seeing one’s job as a noble means of making money so that one can go and live out the other elements of one’s life happily and freely. This is especially true given that the number of people who have found a means of making a sustainable income from their calling, their passion, is perhaps not as large as we would like to believe. Which is not to say that individuals shouldn’t continue trying to find a way to have their work honestly line up with their passions, nor is it to say that one shouldn’t feel genuine sense of satisfaction in the work that one does. But rather it is to acknowledge that on your way to that golden highway you ought to do your best not to get so caught up in the work that you’re doing so as to become permanently waylaid on one side street or another as so many seem to. It is also to point out that keeping your work and your passions separate is a choice many of us will have to make and that treating one’s work accordingly falls greatly short of selling out and is, in many regards, the smartest decision one can make.

The other often unspoken component to workaholism is the degree to which it undermines the very essence of civic life that is vital to the healthy functioning of a democracy. In that same piece, E.D. notes how our definition as consumers has an unsatisfying affect on our degree of happiness,

Divorce rates are at unprecedented levels.  Depression is as common as the common cold.  We patch our sadness up with pills and purchases.  People are generally not made happier by their ability to buy cheaper goods, and pharmaceuticals have only mixed success.

I would add to that list that civic participation is at all time lows (the most recent Canadian federal election had the lowest turnout in the history of the confederation*) and that this is partly because the economic contribution we provide through our work is only a part of how we collectively and individually build the civil society upon which our democracies rest. The membership in a community, raising a family and being present and joyful to that activity, being a part of a relationship and acting as a loving and supportive mate, taking an interest in the world around one’s self  and what is happening in that world, having conversations about those happenings, forming opinions, and finding ways to help cultivate a world in which one can be proud — all of these things are elements of life that needn’t be housed, and indeed often are not housed, within our work world and I would argue that they are vital to a healthy and robust democracy.

But who has the energy these days? Who has the time? How often does it feel much more inviting to sit down in front of the television and zone out for the rest of the evening because the day’s work has left one so drained. Sure it might be nice to become involved in one’s community association or attend a municipal election debate, but our time away from the office is so scarce we can’t help but hide it away from the light of civic life.

The larger trouble with the consuming idenity of the workaholic is that he or she actively negates not just their own happiness, but the elements of their life that act as the social glue that holds the good life together in a modern society. Societies can no more subsist on work alone than individuals, and our increasing demand that they do is perhaps a key element in the social decay we all seem worried about in various ways. Often times we think that the way to overcome such perterbations is harder work, but in fact the answer may well be to take it easy and reaccquaint ourselves with the fullness of life.

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