Overwork: Ancient and Contemporary Self-Help Amiri Rivers-David, Pomona ’24 Staff Writer It does feel sometimes as if we were born to work. Especially as a student, near-total time efficiency is assumed to be indispensable; if there is a goal and progress is not actively being made toward that goal, time is being wasted. Too, that goal must be respectable and in some sense lucrative. In these moments, where one sees endless drought-saddened fields of labor in their future—in these moments where one feels moon-landed, working infinitely to work infinitely more—in these moments of great stress and worry, it is quite easy to jump feetfirst into the pool of self-help. It is a shame, then, that much of the self-help that is appealing in these states results in deep dissatisfaction. It is of great utility to know exactly why this is the case—if one were to understand the fundamental axioms upon which this unfulfilling advice stands, not only does the advice become easier to rebut, but the individual’s relationship with work and productivity is also deepened and educated. The drive to work tirelessly stems often from the unquenchable thirst for socioeconomic success. The notion that more labor equates to more happiness is stirred by the echoic memories of the ever-dead American Dream, an ideal still pervasive in the American collective unconscious. Of course, the emphasis on tireless work is not exclusive to American culture, but America’s particular history with respect to the idea influences the way it manifests. Many people still see America as a land of opportunity, through which one’s excellence will pervade and immortalize them with fortune and fame if they should desire it. However, even this fanciful meritocracy is deeply frayed at the seams. Edward Lyttleton, an ethicist writing about work culture in the 20th century, writes how, “A great deal of the work which has been most permanent in its
effect has been done by men on the brink of breaking down.”1 Even those great among us, those brilliant young minds who have slaved through the proverbial ranks and have been acknowledged for their ingenuity—even these minds too often suffer still. We repeat, as a mantra, that hymn that tells us of the infinite value of work and blind ourselves to the often unfortunate reality of those legends; we repeat that hymn and continue to sow our tears into that barren field of labor. Other times, the impulse to work beyond one’s capabilities is not fueled by those echoic memories aforementioned, not driven by any consumerist desire to spend or to be admired in legend. Work itself has become an ideal of sorts, a virtue; someone who works as hard as possible is seen as exemplary, as a paragon of spirit and discipline; they are seen as, in some ways, more honorable people. They are envied for their work ethic, regardless of whether they achieve the sky-scraper heights of a realized American Dream. Here too Lyttleton informs how an able-bodied person impossibly ought both not to injure their health nor turn down work: Work cannot be refused, though the limits of energy have been reached... However formidable the increase of burden may be, the worker should say to himself “I can do it: it will not tire me—not a bit.”2
Youth as an ideal collides with work, as if one of the core and incorrigible qualities of youth is the production of labor, as if it were a rite of passage. Young, spry, and able-bodied all imply one’s readiness to produce to that maximum capacity; a young person doing exactly that is seen as taking full advantage of their youth, of seizing their days of good health, and is further exalted as “one of the good ones”
52
