Stop Working So Hard

In my senior year, high school English class, my teacher had us watch a documentary called Happy. Although the documentary highlights plenty of stories by humans who genuinely felt that they achieved pure happiness, I only took one thing away from that film: karoshi. Karoshi is a Japanese term that means working oneself to death. The film highlights the severity of this phenomenon by portraying what makes certain demographics unhappy. For the population of Japan, it was karoshi. That was the day that a fear I never knew existed began. 

As someone who tends to be hyper-focused on her academic endeavors, I recently surprised my family when I revealed this crippling fear to them: workaholism. 

Workaholism: a compulsion to work excessively hard and long hours

After a queue of befuddled expressions, I explained my case which elicited polar opposite reactions from my Gen Z sister and my Gen X mom. My sister was able to empathize with this fear, while my mom couldn’t understand why I’m not interested in devoting my entire life to my vocation.

Of course I am passionate about my future career, but the idea that it could deceptively consume every fiber of my being someday terrifies me. Although I value my professional ambitions, I am not ashamed to admit that I value my family, friends, and personal interests just as much, if not more. 

understanding the grind

For reasons that are beyond me, the generations that came before ours pride themselves on their timesheets. My parents were plagued by this ideology and made it their mission to drill it into my head to have a similar work ethic. That’s why I’ve always treated my minimum wage jobs like I was working as a brain surgeon; never calling out, afraid to take days off, and mentally bringing the job home with me to analyze any mistakes I made (the mistake being forgetting to bring ketchup to table four). This was an exhausting and unnecessary task for a 15-year-old. 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve made it a priority to let myself breathe. While I recognize the obvious merit of my educational and vocational goals, I intentionally try my very best to keep those goals from seeping into my personal life. I’m not sure if this is a milestone of maturity or perhaps an unpopular opinion, but either way, I intend to keep it that way for my entire life. 

escaping the grind

Work-life balance is unfortunately something that we are not taught. There is no tutorial on how to not become a workaholic. However, I’ve found that a few social media influencers are not afraid to refute this workaholic lifestyle. 

These two influencers are just a few examples of people who are relatively fresh out of college with normal 9-5 jobs. Most of their content includes videos like these that depict what they like to do after contract hours, drawing a clear line between work and home. Content like this is refreshing to see and gives me hope that we can emphasize working to live rather than living to work. 

There was something that a former teacher said to me in high school that keeps me grounded when I find myself dwelling on this fear of slowly morphing into a workaholic. He told me that whatever he doesn’t finish today is tomorrow’s problem. Although he’s a member of Gen X, he managed to escape the “the grind doesn’t stop” mentality. His confession led me to the epiphany that the grind shouldn’t come home with you. Sometimes, you need to leave the grind on your desk, and that’s okay. 

• #work/life balance
• career
• mental health