Growing up we saw our parents to be workaholics well congratulations, you have joined them right now. I noticed that when you are doing what you love, you get addicted to doing it even when you don’t feel like it, but the passion for the job makes you want to do it more. To other people that don’t have passion for that job they will see it as stress and classify you to be an extreme hardworker. But in real sense you are addicted to doing that job because that’s where your super power is, that’s where you excel in most so doing it brings you great joy.
I remember having this lecturer in school that was extremely old but he never missed his classes. This is because, lecturing was his happy place.
Some people are yet to find where they excelled in and that can be frustrating. You see them jumping from one career choice to another because they are yet to find where they are good at. Those ones sometimes try to use other things as distractions, they either go partying or find other ways to have fun. But when they don’t have any other choice but to engrave their selves into this work, work becomes a nightmare for them.
Just as some people see work as a place for passion or a comfort place, some people also see work as a place of escape. They might have a shitty life, but aren’t that excellent at work, work is the only thing that makes them forget how shitty their lives are. It’s kind of a distraction, this is because it makes their mind busy so they don’t have to think of how bad their lives are. Some people might choose to use, drugs, sex or pleasure spending to distract theirselves, while some people choose work.
Some people love their job and it’s makes them happy and that’s okay. They love it so much that they can’t give up anything for that job, that’s the thing that gives them purpose in life. That’s something that makes them want to get up in the morning get things done. That’s good, because that makes you appreciate everything around you.
Someone once said if you want to kill a man, kill his dreams
You find out that the love and passion you have for your work, brings out the best creativity in you. You will always look for better ways to get better results, you are not just doing the work because you have no other choice. Most people are going to work to work ,because it’s a must to work for them. That’s not living, that’s very sad and it’s not their fault, it’s just life.
Having your work as your comfort zone is the only reason you can wake up 3:00 AM energized with lots of fresh ideas to work on. But you can never do that with a work you don’t like or have passion for. Everything seems like stress to you. 10:00 AM will seem too early to work for you. You find yourself grumbling and slacking in being the best at what you do because you just don’t care.
But unhealthy addiction to your work is a mental health problem and it’s not okay. When your work addiction starts affecting your life negatively then you need to check and seek for help.
But how can you notice negative work addiction?
This is very tough because we are in a society where to be considered a hardworker you need to get addicted to your work and work so hard. So work addiction is mostly celebrated as hardwork in our society.
But when you notice that your work is taking 90% of your life and you don’t have any life outside work then you need to check yourself.
If you find yourself losing too much sleep because you are trying to finish a work project or task, even when it’s not necessary to lose sleep, then you are unhealthily addicted to work.
When you are scared of not being successful even though you are the best at what you do, the fear of slight failure troubles you and it makes you put in unnecessary hours of long work. Then you are unhealthily addicted to work.
Putting your work first over personal life and personal relationships is also an indication of unhealthy work addiction.
In summary, in all that you do, try your best to find balance between working and having a personal healthy life. Because too much work without taking care of your health can lead to other health related problems.