Missing Link

Yesterday, one of my software engineers forwarded me a link to an article at nymag.com. I glanced over it breifly when he sent it, but didn’t really think much about it until later last night, when I took the time to fully read it. It was a fairly lengthy article ( something like 7 pages ) on burnout. You can read the article here.

The article got me to start thinking and analyzing myself, and my current state of affairs. While I don’t consider myself burnt out, I certainly think I run the risk of getting there. Running a business is a 24/7 job. Even if I’m not actively working on something for work, it’s always there in the background somewhere. Realizing that I have to find ways of de-stressing and removing myself from work , or face burnout rather quickly, I’ve devoted most of my weekends to spending time with Ann, reading, watching tv or movies and playing games. I’ve even taken up working out at night after work, and doing yoga afterwards. Yes, yoga.

I’ve certainly realized that I needed to do SOMETHING to de-stress. The muscles in my back were constantly knotted and tense, for starters, and I also had a very difficult time falling asleep. My mind was always full of things I had to do for work, and just concerns and worries that come with running a company. I was spending the majority of my time worrying about work, and a very small fraction of my time doing things that I wanted to do. Often my complaint would be that there weren’t enough hours in the day, and that we should add more. And this was after cutting sleep rations down to about 6 hours a night, at best. I still don’t get a full 8 hours of sleep a night; There really is too much stuff that I have / want to do in a given day. I do get more on the weekends, though.

After realizing these things about myself, and reading the article linked above, I’ve come to realize that this nations obsession with work and productivity is insanity. In some places / jobs, a 60 hour work week is normal. Expected, even. There are people who eat, sleep, and work. They come in to the office early and leave late, rinse, repeat. All in an effort to get ahead, to be a success. We are always on the go, always working, busy , or late for something. As a society, we don’t take time to slow down and enjoy life. Always looking towards some distant future when things will be better, when we can slow down and relax… and not realizing that the far off future we see really doesn’t exist. We’ll never slow down, we’ll never relax. Not as long as there is work to be done.

We *should* work towards being successful, sure. We should all have goals that we want to accomplish, too. They are what drives us, what keeps us going. Those goals, however, should be attainable. We should also recognize the value of rest and relaxation. Vacation time is a very crucial thing, as it allows us to take a week and do whatever we want to do with it. We should encourage those around us to relax, and to remember to enjoy life now. Working insane hours where your waking life is spent almost exclusively at work is a bad thing, and should be discouraged not encouraged.

To take a quote from a great move (van wilder), “don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.”

Lastly, points go to whoever can name where the title of this post is from.

Hint: movie