ShareThisBy DAVID YOUNT
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Among false slogans, none can beat the one wrought in ornamental iron over the gates of Auschwitz: "Work Makes You Free." It was the first thing that slave laborers saw as they entered the death camp. Once inside, a million of them died from starvation, exhaustion, and in the furnaces.
Despite that dramatic lesson, workaholism reigns as our nation's worst addiction. The Center for Work-Life Policy reports that 45 percent of U.S. executives not only work more than 60 hours a week but meet at least five other criteria, such as being on-call 24 hours a day, meeting changing deadlines, and responding to demands across several time zones.
In the past, such workers were known as "wage slaves." Today, they employ euphemisms to justify their addiction to work, explaining themselves as "ambitious," "driven," and "energetic."
Ironically, as addictions go, workaholism is still considered by many to be virtuous. Two-thirds of Americans claim they love their jobs. Job satisfaction rises to 76 percent world-wide.
But the costs are severe and unsustainable. Two-thirds of executives complain that they get too little sleep. They admit to overeating and drinking, and neglecting exercise.
According to Dominic Rushe, writing from New York for The Sunday Times of London, 65 percent of men report that their work prevents them from having a strong relationship with their children. One-third of working mothers express a similar complaint for themselves. At the end of the day, 45 percent of working men and women in the Work-Life survey said that they are too tired even to have a conversation with their spouses.
Years ago, with a team of alumni, I conducted a fundraising campaign for a small college, using the donated offices and phones of a Manhattan advertising agency. We volunteers didn't begin phoning until well after normal work hours, assuming the offices would be empty by then. Yet the office remained filled with ad salesmen calling across time zones until nearly midnight. Workaholism knows no time restraints.
If you watch golf and tennis on TV, as I do, you are aware of the investment firms that promise to fund their viewers' leisurely retirement from work. My own experience of executives and professionals reaching retirement age is that they find themselves at loose ends with time on their hands, having forfeited the self-esteem their careers once gave them.
There are hundreds of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in New York City to deal with that addiction. By contrast, there is just one Workaholics Anonymous meeting, and it seldom attracts more than a dozen regulars. Where are the other workaholics? They are still working.
Jesus told his disciples to stop worrying about making a living. Instead, he counseled, consider the birds of the air, who neither sow nor reap. God feeds them.
"Are you not worth more than many sparrows?" he reminded them (Luke 12:24).
(David Yount's latest book is "Celebrating the Rest of Your Life: A Baby Boomer's Guide to Spirituality" (Augsburg). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com.)
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