Do You Work Too Much?
by Takara Alexis
Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You love working and you are responsible for many projects at once as well as tasks that are constantly being assigned to you or your group. You thrive on the pressures of multiple deadline. Or maybe you work multiple jobs or own your own business. Your work hours are long, your at-home hours short, and your sleep hours few. Vacations and social visits with friends are a distant memory. Your only hobby is your job.
You or someone you know might be a workaholic. Workaholics live for their work, and enjoy spending many extra hours at work, and often taking work home to complete. Americans, when compared to many other countries are typically a work-hard culture, but when work becomes the sole reason for a person's existence above more important things such as family and friends, the issue becomes critical.
Part of the matter is societal. Americans are working more hours every week than in past years, and with all the downsizing's and consolidations and lack of replacement hirings, more and more workers are working extra hours to complete the work previously completed by others. Some studies show that as much as many as 40 percent of workers don't even bother to take vacations, partly because of fears they may not have a job to come back to if they do.
Part of the matter is technological. We exist in a connected environment -- e-mails, instant messaging, fax machines, cell phones, and digital assistants -- causing it to be hard for workers to get any time away from their work.
The key is to take time away from work -- completely away from work -- to get your life back on the right path. It will take some effort on your part -- and perhaps the part of a friend or spouse -- to make the shift from a sole focus on work, but for your mental and physical well-being, you must try to make an effort.
Whether it's how more and more of us are commonly defining success in terms of financial and materialistic measures or the fact that a lot of Americans have to work various jobs simply to earn a living and prevent their families from poverty, we are working more and more for the financial outcomes.
Regardless of the reasons, workaholism can be a crucial condition that can lead to the descent and demolition of families, as well as stress-related health issues. When work becomes the only reason for being -- when it becomes the only thing we think about, the one thing that really makes us happy -- then it's time for some kind of intervention. And don't confuse hard work for workaholism. Hard workers know the difference when it comes to work and personal time and can perform normally when not at work, while workaholics don't have personal time and can't function well outside of work.
