In Praise of Laziness – Part One

An article by Drew    1 Comment

Are you working too hard – arriving at work early and leaving late? Do you work weekends or attack your leisure activities with the same frenetic energy that you bring to your job? Or do you pack your “leisure hours with chores and other unpaid work? If the answer to any of these questions is yes then for the sake of your sanity and sanctity you need to read this article. If the answer is a heart-felt “no way!” then you should read the article anyway just to have your lifestyle validated and your opinions affirmed.

When I was young – way back last century – we looked at the year 2000 as a remote, science fiction sort of date. We actually believed that life would something like the Jetsons – people flying around in little bubble cars with robots doing all the work. Social analysts seriously thought that our biggest problem after 2000 would be filling all our leisure time when we were only working a few hours each week.

Somewhere along the way things went horribly wrong. Today we are working harder than ever before, rushing from place to place, constantly on the go.

“Rubbish!” I hear you cry. What about the medieval peasants toiling from dawn till dusk in the fields? What about factory workers during the industrial revolution slaving long hours in their dark satanic mills? We have the forty hour week, paid holidays, sick leave. We have it easy.

OK there’s plenty of room for debate. While our forebears may have worked longer hours and undoubtedly did more manual labour they didn’t have to contend with the pace and pressure of our 21st century existence.

Tom Hodgkinson – author of How To Be Idle and How To Be Free – claims that our “angst-driven nine-to-five drudgery is only a fairly recent development in terms of human history. It is the result of when, some 250 years ago, we were ripped from our agrarian existence by the ravages of the Industrial Revolution. This transformed our previous existence of spontaneous, task-oriented work, to one where we were shackled to the ruthless tyranny of the clock and wage labour.”

It’s easy to idealize an agrarian existence – in tune with the land and its seasons – pottering away at practical tasks as they needed to be done. “Oo ar Bessie I’ll just pop out and pick a punkin or two for the harvest festival. I’ll be back afore sundown” I honestly think I could cope with life on the farm provided I had hot water, a flush toilet, the internet and a decent town reasonably close by. Many of my fellow baby boomers are trying to live out this dream, buying lifestyle blocks of land and attempting to quit the rat race in favour of the rural “good life.” But sadly it seldom works out.

The problem is that we still want all the expensive toys and diversions of our consumerist society as well as the peace of the country. Our farmer forbears had simpler needs whereas most of us suffer from chronic affluenza.

affluenza, n. a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.

affluenza, n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.

We’re so busy acquiring stuff – a house, a new car, a plasma TV, an iphone, clothes, more clothes, a bach, a boat, etc. etc. – we end up on treadmill – working so long and hard to pay for stuff that we barely have time to enjoy. “Work hard, play hard.” What a dreadful, self destructive mantra for the driven! It’s as bad as the chorus line from the Queen anthem “I want it all, I want it all, I want it all and I want it now!”

Then there are other strange adrenalin junkies who are hooked on the work itself. The money and the toys are almost irrelevant. They’re addicted to the work, the pace, the stress and the fatigue – clocking up 70 hour weeks, working weekends, ending up with no time for their families, their friends, themselves or their souls.

One lawyer I know rose every morning before dawn. He was at work before 7am and left well after 7pm. He worked Saturdays and sometimes Sundays, he brought work home. When he wasn’t working he was training for marathons. His wife forced him to take a holiday in Fiji where he was still receiving hundreds of faxes and emails every day. Somehow he found time to sire a couple of children but he was barely in their lives and completely missed out on their growing up.

Some people would see this poor schmuck as a hero, setting an example in his expensive suits, leading from the front, earning vast amounts for his firm but I believe the guy was sick and badly needed help. I vastly prefer the ethos of the top corporate executive who expressed his creed like this…

“I make sure to work a standard 40-hour week and never work in the weekends. This is important to me for two reasons. First of all, I have a life outside of work. I have a family who likes to have me around and friends and hobbies that I also want to have time for. I find that the time I spend outside of work recharges my batteries, expands my horizons and actually makes me more efficient at work.

Secondly, if I’m always seen arriving at the office at 6 in the morning and leaving at 9 in the evening, not to mention taking calls and writing emails late at night and all weekend, it’s sure to send a signal to my employees that this is what the company expects, that this is “the right way”. But it isn’t.

It’s a simple fact that for most leaders and employees, the first 40 hours they work each week are worth much more to the company than the next 20, 30 or 40 hours. But those extra hours spent at work can harm your private life, your family and your health. Which in turn becomes damaging to the company. Frankly, if you can’t structure your time so your work fits inside a 40-hour week, you need to get better at prioritizing and delegating.”