🙋🏼♀️ Dearest you,
I don't know about you, but among the people I spend time with, being busy lost its coolness a long time ago.
Being busy is a sign of too little prioritizing, poor time management, or at least a temporary state of inconvenience.
I grew up perceiving business as a status-enhancing phenomenon, but as soon as I got access to this thing we call critical thinking that changed.
When someone I care about is busy, my first questions are usually: what do you need in order to become less busy? How is your health? Are you okay?
As I complimented myself on having said goodbye to the toxic glorification of having not enough time for the things one deems important, I spotted some good old hypocrisy.
Because while I might have stopped saying praise in the name of Lord Busybusybusy. I have been worshipping the noble 'hard work'.
In one week I caught myself telling three friends I had such a good day because I was working really hard. And worse even, I used both a family dinner and brunch to humblebrag about my productivity not by saying I was so busy, but by stating that I was working so hard.
Why on earth do we worship hard work?
Why not admire people who do fun work? Or relaxed work? Let's praise people who work in whatever manner they find rewarding. I am not saying we should shy away from things that are difficult. Rather I think we should seek easy work, promising ourselves that we won't give up when things get hard for a while.
Glorifying hard work, however, is the work equivalent of applauding two love partners that go toe to toe bickering every day. Might be cute the first three months, but after that, no rug is big enough to swipe the issues under.
At work, it's not a problem if things get difficult every now and then, such is life. You do have to wonder though: with everything challenging that is a natural part of being alive, do I also want to actively seek out hard work?
The past few days I've tried to celebrate rewarding work. On some days that might mean putting in a lot of effort and on others, this might feel like a walk in the park.
Up until now, I can say:
authentic satisfaction in trade for egoic validation — that's a damn good deal.
Have a great week,
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