You got up at 3 a.m after 2 hours of sleep. You felt a little bit of nausea. You tried to go back to sleep but it was already 4.30 a.m. “Don’t care,” you said. Then, you closed your eyes and opened it again at 8.30 a.m. and felt worse. Fast forward, life happened and you couldn’t process what’s going on until the clock showed that it’s already 8 p.m.
Another day before the pandemic hits, you would find yourself catching trains, being in line collectively — together with those who were waiting for their turn to move the engine, and you arrived at home only to find that you’re too tired for everything while this time is the only opportunity you had for anything today, except for work.
In both scenarios, you thought about taking your annual leave, joining a mindfulness workshop in a hope that managing your mind and breath would be the panacea for everything, moving to a new, less boring place, redefining your sense of purpose, keeping your family safe and secured, reading more articles about productivity, and eventually, you thought about leaving. All behind.
I used to blame the excessive amount of working hours caused by this mega-shift of working remotely for all the discomfort we’re facing before I spotted more cues. Without reducing all the pain we’ve felt caused by COVID-19, the pandemic isn’t the one to blame when it comes to our unhealthy relationship with work. Time is just one symptom out of many. After reading some sources (I’m going to specifically mention them in some parts), I’d like to categorize this problem into two perspectives. The first one indicates the consequences of working that hurts them and not their occupation, the second one conveys that their occupation is what’s hurting them. To see the difference between the two, let’s examine them a bit further.
People often mistakenly interpret that all people hate their job because of their job. That’s not always true. If we listen closely to the statement, we will hear:
“If only I didn’t have to deal with the traffic jam.”
“I hate getting into the train at busy hours.”
“I’m okay doing this task as long as I don’t have to do it with that person.”
“I wish this kind of job creates better pay.”
All the statements make perfect sense. They hate spending hours on the road or standing in chaotic public transportation or working with unsupportive co-workers or the amount of money they got. People might finally change their job because of these factors which often make us think (and probably they, too, think) that they hate their job. But some of them solve this type of problem by moving nearer to the office or searching for an additional source of income. All come with their consequences.
Then we move to the other group which sometimes hard to define.
“I feel like a misfit.”
“Whenever I did this job, I feel conflicting.”
“I don’t have a chance to take care of myself.”
“It’s not fulfilling.”
“I’m stuck.”
They sound different from the first group and we could see the pattern here. The expression is more abstract. It comes from internal push — an awareness that something’s not right. Put the same sentences in a context of a relationship with your partner or family, then we could understand why it’s called an unhealthy relationship, why it’s hurting people individually and collectively, and why some people, finally, consider leaving.
Before pointing our fingers at certain parties, I want to ask you to keep these symptoms and see how we react to this situation, so far. There’s an interesting article in Psyche that blatantly said:
“Most of the advice out there is either about how to survive, or how to be successful. It’s also pretty two-dimensional. On one side, there are the people who tell you to work hard and be productive. Then there’s the other side, the people who tell you to ‘practise self-care’ to avoid burnout. Many self-help writers have made a lot of money from taking one of these sides and trashing the other.”
To see whether we have other options in-store, we need to step back for a while to encounter much more intriguing questions.
If it hurts us, why do we need to work at the first place?
There’s a simpler question expressed by James Suzman in his book, Work, where he asked “why do we need to work?”. We might want to intuitively answer the question by saying “duh, no work-no money-no eat-no life”. However, if we think about our super old ancestors who didn’t even know what money is, it’s interesting to ask how they ate and ultimately how they lived.
Before blaming the existence of money, Suzman provided a fact that our ancestors worked, too, even before they understood the concept of money. Interestingly, they didn’t work (only) to eat. There’s historical evidence that shows how humans create things — from a tiny necklace or well-crafted knives to a big building — to appreciate beauty. They worked to fulfill the law of entropy where humans need to release their energy. It’s an act of being part of nature.
More importantly, Suzman pointed out that work was done from a perspective of abundance, not from a perspective of scarcity. Hence, work enabled our ancestors to connect with others (by working together to make big buildings), connect with their environment, and connect with themselves (self-expression). Significant change happened when humans learned to control a huge amount of energy sources (please welcome, agriculture age!). They managed and distributed it to other humans. Things went awkward when energy is stored up elsewhere and you need to exchange it with something to gain it. The chain went further. At this period, we gradually shifted our view from the perspective of abundance to the perspective of scarcity.
Up until now, we’re competing with each other to not only completing our basic needs but also our relative needs, which has no definite endpoint, hoping that we’ll win the scarcity games by getting nearer to the source of energy. Then the story of this unhealthy relationship is snow-balling, making humans grow weary and anxious about their lives.
This anxiety is not only caused by the shifting in perspective, but also the consequence of humans undergoing the process to become an individual, or as Erich Fromm put it, the process of individuation. In Escape from Freedom, Fromm argued that the process of individuation happens both physically and intellectually. As a person becomes an individual, he or she becomes more independent physically and intellectually.
This process requires a person to cut their connection with whatever things told them what to do or who to be. As a result, we also gradually lose our relationship and a sense of belonging to something bigger than us (whatever that could be). The modern system of working seems to offer the replacement of this longing — but it doesn’t. While capital can give the sense of assurance of access to sources for surviving, humans are persuaded to believe that they’re always in a mode of competition. Also, the capital offers no intimacy — a thing that people seek right now. Put it all together then we have a wounded and lonely society.
Life is a mixture of many things and to put all the burden on working seems to simplify the complexity we’re facing. However, it’s worth remembering that work has always been a part of humans’ life and we used to have a much better relationship with it. It used to help us nurture our relationship with other people, our surrounding, and ourselves. It helped us to express ideas and feelings. It was part of the expression of living in abundance when humans were brave enough to say “enough”. It helped us to just be.
Sometimes I feel something wants us to believe that this collective weariness is unbreakable. It’s premature and too arrogant to say that it’s entirely wrong but to mindlessly accept it means dead-end. One thing that I know is we’re not done yet and we still got a chance to figure out how this could turn to be something that nourishes us. Let’s work on it.
