Ever hear of the "hurry sickness"? Ever wonder when happiness got tied to commodities? Ever wonder why so many undertake the pursuit of loneliness? Ever wonder why we have been compelled to do more, to move faster, to compete harder?
All across our nation both those with high disposable incomes and those with more average incomes find the demands upon them leave little time for happiness.
Did you know the Japanese have a category that lists death from overwork as a national statistic? The first reported death from overwork was in 1969 and struck a 29 year old male worker in a shipping department. He died from a stroke as the result of over work. As more and more deaths were linked to overwork the Japanese recognized that workers doing twelve or more hours a day, six or seven days a week, year after year, were at a higher risk for death. They determined that working like this held too much evidence of suffering physically as well as mentally.
Working, left little time for anything. Working just to accumulate things led to more stress and a higher risk of dying instead of less.
A friend of a friend had an interesting overwork story. Apparently one day the friend of a friend was experiencing pain in his chest. He decided the prudent thing to do was to go to the emergency room and get checked out immediately. In the hospital while under going the initial questioning the doctors asked him how old he was. He said he was thirty-six and they said, "OH! You probably just have indigestion"......but as they moved along with the questions they asked him what he did for a living. He said he was a hedge fund manager and all hell broke loose. Immediately they went into action, they zipped him in and hooked him and called for more help. He's thinking this is not good what's wrong with me? It turned out the week before they had a young financial fund manager die on them and they were taking no chances.
In Australia researcher's asked the question, "Why, if the economy is doing so well, are Australians not becoming happier?" They argued that over work, over-consumption and consumer debt led to psychological disorders, alienation and distress. (Hamilton and Dennis).
The time they had left over after trying to get everything done meant they had to self medicate just to have some measure of enjoyment.
Work-life balance is a concept that ties "career and ambition on one hand, with pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development on the other."
Today in our fast paced society we are inundated with performance as a measure of worth and happiness. The consumer edict tells us that we can't be happy unless we are able to purchase all those baubles, houses and cars waiting on seller's shelves everywhere. It tells us that we are not equal or good enough unless we have them. Performance as a measure of self worth creates a constant stream of increased stress as we strive to reach some pinnacle that keeps getting higher.
Beginning in the 1920s, advertisers persuaded Americans that happiness would not come from leisure time, but from purchasing commodities. So if you worked longer hours you could buy more. Today the average number of hours Americans presently work each week is the highest it has been in nearly seventy-five years.
Eighty percent of men and 62% of women put in more than 40 hours a week on the job. Americans work longer hours than medieval peasants did. Nearly one in five workers now spends more than 50 hours per week at work.
Some view recreation or the pursuit of leisure time as an aspect of life that is unproductive. However research has shown that recreation and leisure have positive health benefits that accrue over time. Slowing down can be advantageous to your overall health.
Around the world the Slow Down Movement is gaining momentum. Professor Guttorm Fløistad summarizes the philosophy, stating:
The only thing for certain is that everything changes. The rate of change increases. If you want to hang on you better speed up. That is the message of today. It could however be useful to remind everyone that our basic needs never change. The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love! This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal.
There is an interesting talk about slowing down on TED
http://www.ted.com/talks/carl_honore_praises_slowness.html
i'll leave you with two questions to ponder while you also try to slow down.
One...does excessive pursuit of money and materialism come at a substantial cost to our own lives and to the lives of our families?
And Two.... does this link in with an ever greater degree of violence in our society which can be an indicator of the levels of stress we aren't able to deal with?
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