Throughout my college years, I had this mentality that I needed to be doing everything. I was young, energetic, and with my whole life ahead of me so why couldn’t I do anything and everything? I fully booked myself with more than a full-time amount of class units along with being in multiple clubs ranging from design to pre-med. I also worked part-time to cover some tuition costs and still tried to have a social life.
I remember my entire day was jam packed, and I would begin early in the morning and go from one thing to another with hardly a break. Finally, I would come back to my apartment late in the evening totally exhausted to see my roommates who had just chilled most of the day in their pajamas watching Netflix. Thinking about what my typical college day had been makes me feel tired now.
It didn’t occur to me that I kept that tone of busyness even after I graduated from college with a mediocre GPA (quantity over quality; I don’t recommend this). The busy collegiate days gave me dark circles under my eyes and a feeling that was a mixture of regret, uncertainty, and mostly sadness. I tried to take a break to recoup and reflect after I graduated on what had gone wrong but it wasn’t until I had my first full-time job that I understood better that I was trying to do too much at the same time.
Sometimes lessons don’t sink in right away
During my first full-time job, I went full bore taking on extremely difficult tasks my new boss threw at me. I stayed late into the evenings without getting any overtime. It didn’t help that the job was basically a start-up style culture and I was the first employee. I went above and beyond my measly pay to produce something worthy of a highly paid, seasoned professional.
This method I used impressed my boss and coworkers and made me the go-to person. It worked for a while but then things came crashing down because I kept getting more difficult tasks added on. On top of that, the grunt-work didn’t lessen, and it seemed like my boss kept trying to push even more out of me.
Overambitious deadlines couldn’t be met, things started slipping through the cracks, and I started to feel burnt out. Although things ended well, all things considered, with that job, I left feeling exhausted and bitter.
Life is a marathon, not a sprint
After that, I really tried to reflect on what happened. I could try to blame my boss and the workplace culture but the company was just getting started when I came onboard. It was my fault for self-setting and agreeing to set my pace and my own bar too high. I was also to blame for communicating to my boss that I could do all these things when it just wasn’t feasible for me in the long run.
Recognizing that life is a marathon and not a sprint really changed my mind about how I now approach work and life in general. During the time I worked like a beast at my job, I was miserable because I didn’t have any outlets: no hobbies, social life, or anything that I felt I had been building that I could come back to outside of my job.
Burnout Generation
The Millennial Generation has been argued to be a Burnout Generation by others1,2. I see how hard and how much time my friends and fellow coworkers work and I also hear them complain about their life direction and lack of movement up in the world. I sense the bitterness toward work and sadness about the lack of life people feel they have.
People work long hours beyond the number of hours a day for which they were hired. They answer emails and deal with company issues during their evenings and weekends. Even vacation isn’t sacred and treated as a true, well-deserved break anymore. You may blame technology for this but we all have the ability to set our boundaries.
Related Post: Feel Like You’re Always Running Out of Time?
It used to just be CEOs and founders that were working nonstop. Now, it’s almost mainstream and trendy to be working all the time and on-call. Maybe it makes people feel important or that it will get them a raise or promotion just a little bit faster.
But let’s stop lying to ourselves. Sometimes, all working harder does is make us more valuable exactly where we are.
If I take a break, they’ll forget all about me
“You have this idea that you’d better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous. And then you realize, no, actually if you take a break people might be more interested in you.”
Robin Williams
You don’t disappear if you take a break nor are you lazy or weak even though these ideas seem to be the current consensus. So, we encourage others and ourselves to work hard nonstop.
On LinkedIn and other online platforms, I often see people bragging about their startup, paying off an expensive home, or some or “rags-to-riches” story where they then condemn their peers by saying something obnoxious like, “Working 100 hours a week, I didn’t let COVID get me down. I started a company, paid off my house, and bought a Tesla. What have you done with your time?”
We grumble about it but then try to copy this work really, really hard ethic thinking we too can get what they have. But behind-the-scenes, there’s more to this seemingly straightforward success. Often times, they neglect to tell us about the support from their wealthy parents or a lucky break they got that allowed them this opportunity.
Hard work doesn’t guarantee success
Seeing that more hard work doesn’t necessarily equal more success can be discouraging. It’s just a fact that there are no guarantees in life. Just because you get a college degree doesn’t necessarily mean you will get above a certain pay grade.
Working harder and longer doesn’t always mean more pay or more accolades or a better life. Sometimes, which is what I see too often, more hours put in is just that – more hours for someone else and fewer hours for yourself
On top of work, I see people trying to do everything all at once. They try to be a climber at work, be active in social media, start a new trendy hobby, be fit, make their own healthy food, have family, etc.
People try to squeeze in travel by jet setting off somewhere for the weekend just to post it on Instagram and feel like they did something for themselves. In reality, their body and mind probably just wanted to rest and do something truly refreshing.
It’s time to redefine success and how we achieve it
This COVID-19 quarantine has helped me realize it’s okay to slow down and that I don’t need to feel guilty about not doing more.
At the beginning of quarantine back in April, I was out in my garden, which was, as usual, just dirt and weeds because I don’t know what I’m doing out there. Digging around in my dirt patch, I realized how nice it was to not have the invisible societal pressure of constantly needing to be doing something that was moving me forward in life off of me.
I realized that I could just enjoy doing something because I wanted to do it. It was pure. It wasn’t to brag about on social media, to prove something about myself, or to put on my resume.
What kind of life do you want really?
A lot of us are working so hard to get a life we don’t necessarily need or may not even want. We see social media influencers flaunt a lavish lifestyle and it makes us think we want that too.
But the problem with the way this culture is set-up is that only a few people have positions at the top and are able to make a lot of money to support that lifestyle. For most of us, we may never see that. It doesn’t seem fair but at least we should be allowed a good life for the amount of work we put in.
There was a Dateline episode I listened to about a surfer-loving, California-bred guy who started his own successful company3. His believed in “the moo” which was that people were having their life milked out of them working long hours at their jobs and being led around to do things which they didn’t really understand.
It’s sad to think of ourselves as moo-cows but as the days go by with us pouring our sweat and tears into work and running around trying to do a bunch of things without getting any further in life, I wonder if he wasn’t on to something there.
Don’t wait, thinking you will have happiness later
It’s not wrong to try to make enough and do enough things for a lifestyle that we believe will bring us happiness. However, it is important to realize that time passes regardless and when you finally do have enough money and have acquired all the items you believed necessary, you may be too old or too crippled to enjoy your success.
Try doing less. Cut one thing out that has been making your life miserable. Say no to a new commitment that you don’t really have the time for. Shave off a couple of hours on something that you felt obligated to do but know deep down that you’re being taken advantage of.
When you do less, it becomes clearer what you like to do. You can enjoy more of your life now and you’ll find you can get more done.
A lot of people have been holding off on having kids or have been too stressed to make it happen but with quarantine, having less to run around and do, they’re able to finally achieve this milestone.
The art of doing nothing
“Mistakes are made – or imagined – by man, the creature with the overloaded Brain who separates himself from the supporting network of natural laws by interfering and trying too hard.
Not like Pooh, the most effortless Bear we’ve ever seen.
“Just how do you do it, Pooh?”
“Do what?” asked Pooh.
“Become so Effortless.”
“I don’t do much of anything,” he said.
“But all those things of yours get done.”
“They just sort of happen,” he said.”
The Tao of Pooh
If you’ve never read The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff4, I highly recommend it. He makes Taoist philosophy and principles accessible and fun to learn about.
Taoism is an ancient religion that started in China and is practiced now worldwide. Although I do not claim to be a Taoist, I like many of their philosophies. I think it’s helpful to read from other religions and cultures because it can give you a helpful perspective you may need in your life.
Refresh your perspective
Sometimes, we look too closely and too narrowly in our own life. Understanding other viewpoints allow us to back away and take a fresh look which can be beneficial for moving forward and making better decisions.
The point I’m trying to make with this excerpt is that doing nothing or less will allow you to get things done. If done correctly, you would get more done than you would if you were to be busy and doing a lot.
This may seem counterintuitive as many Taoist philosophies are but think of someone you know or maybe yourself. The more they do, running around all the time, when they sum up their day, they often admit nothing really got done.
Even after weeks of being busy, all that they get out of it is exhaustion. Nothing of quality or meaning gets done because they are just busy being busy.
Do less to do more
“Tao does not do, but nothing is not done.”
The Tao of Pooh
So, try to slow down and take a breath. Stop and smell the roses as the old adage goes. Most beautiful moments only happen once so take the opportunity to appreciate them when they appear. Do less to do more of what you love and what makes you happy now.
Live happier,
Nicole
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References:
1. Jaffe Ph.D., Adi. Burnout Generation? Redefining Success and Work Culture. Psychology Today, 2019 May 13. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-addiction/201905/burnout-generation-redefining-success-and-work-culture.
2. Petersen, Anne Helen. How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation. Buzzfeed News, 2019 Jan 05. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work.
3. Hoff, Benjamin. The Tao of Pooh. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1982.
4. Dateline. In a Lonely Place. NBC, 2018.
Photos:
Header Image is original artwork.
Image of Pooh and Piglet: Burnside, Sarah. Revisiting Winnie-the-Pooh: more cutting than we thought when we were six. The Guardian; 2016 Nov 3. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/04/revisiting-winnie-the-pooh-more-cutting-than-we-thought-when-we-were-six
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