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Addicted to Work
The “workaholic” is a celebrated member of society. Nowhere is that
perhaps more true than here in Silicon Valley, where 100-hour workweeks
and 24/7 availability are the norm.
In 2019, after three years of monthly travel for work, I decided to limit
travel in an effort to bring work and home life back into balance. At first I
transparently let people know the reason why: I wanted more time with my
family. People seemed both annoyed and offended that I would decline their
invitation for a reason as hippie-dippie as “time with family.” I eventually
resorted to saying I had another engagement, which met with less resistance.
My working elsewhere, it seemed, was acceptable.
Invisible incentives are now woven into the fabric of white-collar work,
from the prospect of bonuses and stock options to the promise of promotion.
Even in fields like medicine, health care providers see more patients, write
more prescriptions, and perform more procedures, because they’re
incentivized to do so. I get a monthly report on my productivity, as measured
by how much I’ve billed on behalf of my institution.
By contrast, blue-collar jobs are increasingly mechanized and divorced
from the meaning of the work itself. Working under the employ of distant
beneficiaries, there’s limited autonomy, modest financial gain, and little
sense of common mission. Piecemeal assembly-line work fragments the
sense of accomplishment and minimizes contact with the end-product
consumer, both of which are central to internal motivation. The result is a
“work-hard/play-hard” mentality in which compulsive overconsumption
becomes the reward at the end of a day of drudgery.
It’s no wonder, then, that those with less than a high school education in
low-paying jobs are working less than ever, whereas highly educated wage
earners are working more.
By 2002, the top-paid 20 percent were twice as likely to work long hours
as the lowest-paid 20 percent, and that trend continues. Economists speculate
that this change is due to higher rewards for those at the top of the economic
food chain.
I find it difficult at times to stop myself from working once I’ve begun. The
“flow” of deep concentration is a drug in itself, releasing dopamine and
creating its own high. This kind of single-minded focus, although heavily
rewarded in modern rich nations, can be a trap when it keeps us from the
intimate connections with friends and family in the rest of our lives.
The Verdict on Pain
As if answering his own question about whether he had gotten addicted to
cold-water immersion, Michael said, “It never got out of hand. For two to
three years, I took a ten-minute ice bath every morning. Now I’m not as into it
as I used to be. I do it on average three times a week.
“What’s really cool,” he went on, “is that it’s become a family activity, and
something we do with friends. Doing drugs was always social. In college a
lot of people partied hard. It was always sitting around together drinking or
doing lines of coke.
“Now I don’t do that anymore. Instead, a couple of our friends come
over. . . . They have kids too, and we have a cold-water party. I have a
custom trough set in the mid-forties, and everybody takes turns getting in,
alternating with the hot tub. We have a timer and we cheer each other on,
including the kids. The trend has caught on among our friends too. This group
of all women in our friend group goes to the Bay once a week and gets in.
They immerse themselves to their necks. That water’s in the fifties.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know,” he laughed. “They probably go out and party.”
We both smiled.
“You’ve said several times you do it because it makes you feel alive. Can
you explain?”
“I don’t really like the feeling of being alive. Drugs and alcohol were a
way to like it. Now I can’t do that anymore. When I see people partying, I’m
still a little bit jealous of the escape they’re getting. I can see they get the
reprieve. Cold water reminds me that being alive can feel good.”
—
If we consume too much pain, or in too potent a form, we run the risk of
compulsive, destructive overconsumption.
But if we consume just the right amount, “inhibiting great pain with little
pain,” we discover the path to hormetic healing, and maybe even the
occasional “fit of joy.”
E
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