Beware of Workaholic

Work as Virtue

I got a job! Well … its actually a job offer. It involves digging holes for fences … in an housing estate … that's being developed. And yes! … I have turned it down. My age … the physical exertion … I'm surprised anyone actually asked me! But it was this guy … who was unemployed when I met him … some years back … and helped him out a little. I had told him I need to find a job … and I guess he tried to help. He's working at the same job.

It gives new meaning to the willingness of the spirit … and the bone crushing effect on old age. I had asked for a day to think it over. And as I pondered on it … mindful of the normal excuses I make with regards to manual labor … I became convinced … that it would affect my health. My work in the garden … and the effects of physical exertion in the following days … was my guide on the decision.

Sitting back today … after informing my friend of my decision … I am reminded of the cavalry soldiers who served under General Custer. The autopsy on the bodies … after Little Big Horn … indicated a corrosion of the bones in the tibia in the legs … that is consistent with driving themselves … beyond all physical endurance. It reminds me of Roman soldiers who march three days and nights and fight a battle at the end of it.

Is there a need for self awareness … among folks who rely on mind … and drive the body beyond all limits? I think there might be. I remember a special joy I used to feel … at performing physical activity … that is not only about accomplishment … but the simple joy of physical action itself. And I used to drive myself to excel in any task I was assigned to … until … it produced an ulcer … and the doctor told me I would have to consider a change in lifestyle and attitudes.

I started to do that … gradually … by reminding myself … that its become a health issue … and it warrants some attention. Just then … the popular media … was making references to workaholics … implying that it was an obsession … in some way. And then there were the sexual harassment disputes … that persuaded me that … its not a matter of flaunting the male mystic … at work. Thereafter … the efficiency experts … computers … and a greater tech environment … all but killed … my obsessions at work.

And then something happened … that had a startling effect on my constitution. I saw … how my mind's relation to work … became disengaged from the instrument of my body … including the ego … physical identity … and my relation to work performed. It was as if … work simply took place … on the basis of its own definitions … rewards … accolades … and reputation. It was in some way … work undertaken … as the instrument of society … for a social achievement … and thereafter … the nation.

Philip Kotler in the text ' Marketing Management ' … pointed to the failure of companies to compete … as being caused by a production orientation … and not based on factors … outside in the environment. This had important lessons for me … in my own self management of the issues. My own delight at work … was simply based on producing work … and had no other consideration … as regards its purpose … in a wider application as regards society.

Suddenly it became clear as day. The students I engaged … became to me a representation of society's future … the college … as a competitive unit … that is the choice for business studies. I therefore learnt to work smart. I had a younger colleague in the college … who remarked one time that she was getting to be 32 years of age … and facing her own prior critique … of not trusting anyone over 32 years of age.

And there it was … what I feared I had lost. In the innocence of the work attitude … I had engaged previously … was a sense of virtuousness … founded on being unplanned in attitudes … but simply devoted to work. The Indics refer to it as … karmayogam … or the attitude of self sacrifice … charity … and service to God. I … on the other hand … was turning into the lean machine … that was … working at staying with the social culture. Workaholics …  shun issues.

I continue to encounter folks … like this friend who offered me a job … on the issue of work and virtue. I seem to recall that when he was out of work … he was exhibiting qualities … consistent with the attitude … that God had forsaken him … and he was being punished. He had not returned the monies that I loaned him … so I advised him to … put the money in the money-box at the temple … when he is able. We are all in that way … related to the world around us.

I was doing some house keeping this evening … when I was consumed by a bout of breathlessness. I had always figured that … thinking itself is work … in much the same way … we perceive our duties to God. And thinking burns up calories. Since I started working smart … about 12 years ago … its begun a drive … that's brought a new joy … to my activities … and my individual capacity to think. It occurs to me … on the basis of my past attitudes … that I never thought all these possible. For me … it creates a new belief in possibilities.