Are You A Workaholic? General Notions And Beliefs About Work
In her book, "The Real World of Technology", Ursula Franklin looks at the impact prescriptive technologies have on our daily life. The logic of technology seems to enslave us more than it liberates us. Our cultural and social structures reflect that shift in priority quite clearly.
For instance, school curriculums focus more on what makes the student fit into the workforce, rather than on teaching them life skills. Basic human needs, like eating and sleeping are ignored in pursuit of completing a business related task. Communication between family members, as well as them interacting with each other on a regular basis becomes less frequent, due to long working hours and after hours business commitments. In many families the commitments to work and events outside the home are continuously dominating the family member's need to relate to each other on a deep emotional. Parents compensate for not spending time with their children, by given them expensive toys. Workaholic adults oftentimes claim to spend "quality time" with their children, insisting the quantity being less significant.
Dr. Barbara Killinger, a Toronto psychologist, who writes about workaholism, defines work as "essential for our well-being'. In her opinion work is a means of developing our strengths and abilities and it gives us a sense of self-worth, as well as helps us to find our positions in society.
Killinger states that hard workers are fulfilled worker. Their work adds meaning to their life. They are in charge of their work schedule and although occasionally they will put extra hours and energy into a special project, work still remains only one small facet of who they are as a being. Hard workers are living an overall balanced life. Most importantly they are in touch with their feelings and they have not difficulties expressing them.
Contrary to that, a workaholic, is controlled by her or his work. The work schedule is dominating the being. Work is all consuming and rules the individual's life as well as the life of her/his immediate family. A workaholic perceives his work as draining and exhausting. It does not add anything, but drains everything out of him/her. Although the individual may verbally attest she is enjoying her work, the person generally complains about stress and oftentimes shows physical symptoms of imbalance as well.
Some of those symptoms, are ascent mindedness, sleeping difficulties, poor eating habits, weight issues, racing mind, poor listening ability, time management troubles, just to name a few.
Since work addicts thrive on the glorification hard work receives in our society, it becomes their number one priority in life to constantly be busy doing something. Workaholics have a certain view of how they want to be perceived by their surroundings and by society as a whole, which Killinger calls a "work-persona". This work-persona gradually takes over and rules the personality to a point at which the addict becomes totally dysfunctional in his relationship with self and with the people around her/him.
I believe over time a workaholics develops such an over inflated ego, which ultimately turns her/him into a narcissist, completely preoccupied with the personal agenda, without any empathy or compassion to the validity of the value and the needs of others.
While I have experienced the narcissistic behaviours of others, I am not sure how far down the road of narcissism I was. Yet I do remember a time when I was almost unable to fulfill my daily task as a mother. I would misplace things, forget things, mix up numbers, and forget commitments I had made to others, yet refused to use of a day timer or other aids to help keep me on top of things.
I am very grateful today, that I was able to become aware of the problems I had and found the courage to tackle it head-on, once I was able to overcome the denial. Mind you I took about four years and many fainting and collapsing incidents, some of which I experienced as near death experiences, for me to snap out of denial about the severity of my problem.
The deniability factor for workaholics is a huge issue and I very much believe this is the reason why workaholism isn't yet widely considered to be an addiction. Many people in powerful positions and leadership roles are workaholics and/or display workaholic tendencies and are glorified and rewarded for feeding their addiction, especially, as long as the corporate financial bottom line is still steadily increasing. Once the numbers are no longer acceptable the workaholic's world will over time come undone.
Speaking of numbers, for a workaholic money equals power and security. Therefore the addict will do whatever it takes to have access to as much money as possible. The workaholic, however, doesn't always invest or use money wisely, since she/he is lacking vision, and is generally not receptive to the informed opinion of others. This inability to see value in the experience and expertise in others makes workaholics also very poor team players. They are always eager to stand in the spotlight and take credit when things go well. However, heaven forbid, things go wrong. That's when you will find the workaholics pointing fingers and throwing blame at others, generally peers and subordinates.
They are many examples in the media on a daily basis of executives avoiding to take responsibility for mismanaging situations. Generally there is also large amount of money involved.
Workaholism a Biochemical Addiction:
I experienced workaholism as a dependency on my very own body's fight and flight biochemistry. I became dependant on a certain biochemical mix of hormones in my body. I pushed myself to peak performances, which created a form of ecstasy, due to the surge of jittery hormones like adrenaline, cortisole etc., which acted similarly in my body, as alcohol, or drugs impact the body of other addicts.
It is my experience that work can be extremely addictive, just as addictive as any dependency on a substance, which is injected into the body. With workaholicm, however, it is the individual's behaviour, which initiates a change in the body chemistry and causes similar dysfunction in the body, as experienced in the physiology of a substance abuser.
I continuously created artificial emergencies in my body, due to the extremely unrealistic expectations I had of myself, which kept me stuck in the fight and flight biochemistry for years without end. Even though I believed I had control over my life, I was in fact at the mercy of my brain chemistry, which was completely in control of me.
While society has mechanisms in place to deal with and help drug addicts and alcoholics, it is readily ignoring the biochemical addiction of workaholism. Since the complicated concept of this addiction is not yet commonly understood, society is still unconsciously accepting workaholics in key leadership positions in all facet of daily life. This is unfortunate for people in higher leadership positions, as well as for those working under a workaholic's direction.
The addict is stuck in prison of having to maintain appearances, while the clarity needed to do the job well, is no longer there.
I believe this makes this addiction extremely tragic and I invite everyone who feels they have an issue with work or one of their loved is afflicted with workaholism to contact me via my e-mail.
It is my intend to raise consciousness about the issue and had coach those interested to regain their health and a balanced life.
Copyright © 2006 Hildegard Gmeiner
Hildegard Gmeiner is a writer, speaker, and awareness coach. You can reach at mylifecoach@sympatico.ca.
Related Tags: stress, mental health, time management, denial, workaholism, addictions, psychological terrorism
Hildegard Gmeiner is a writer, speaker, and awareness coach. It's her passion to assist other in creating a new reality for themselves, by mentoring them to become sensitive to their inner voice and live life guided by their soul's inner knowing.
She herself was severely ill during her early thirties and was given up on by the medical professionals, since her disease didn't fit in the paradigm of western medicine. Deeply frustrated, but highly motivated by her three young boys under the age of five at the time, she begun to write and for lack of other options, she begun to make decisions, based on her inner guideance. This led her to regain her health and to create new healthy relationships and a new life and she is willing to share her insights and experience to give hope and assist others on their life journey.
You are invited to contact Hildegard any time for phone and e-mail coaching. Send your mail to mylifecoach@sympatico.ca
Her webpages are expected to be up within the near future.
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