The End of Work № 1
A Manifesto, perhaps more relevant in 2022 than it was when I first wrote it in 2017
I was reminded of this piece, originally written in March of 2017, while talking about the Cult of Productivity with a friend. It is now August of 2022, and my convictions around the end of work have only solidified. With inflation on the rise and unemployment at record lows, with the inability of average individuals to even dream of buying a home of their own, let alone being able to afford skyrocketing rents, with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic shifting the balance of power in the workplace however so slightly, it’s time more people start taking seriously the suggestion that the Protestant Work Ethic is a scam.
Part № 1 is available to all subscribers below - Part № 2 will be available for all paid subscribers in the coming days.
It’s no secret that the past few years have been pretty tough for me on the work front. Two months after starting a brand-new gig at a respected local environmental charity, I was in the ICU recovering from life-saving surgery.
Though I’ve told the story many times it’s no less shocking to me — after the 25lb tumour was removed from my abdomen, the surgeons had to clean up the mess, and literally stitch me back together again. Then, because it had been such a mess in there the first time, they had to go back in a second time to make sure I had a working viscera again, causing further complications that now leave me expecting my bile duct will fail, at some point in the future.
Not surprisingly, this health crisis, which brought me to the brink of death, has entirely transformed the way I look at work, at employment and a career. It’s transformed the extent to which work can no longer be an end itself, something to be done out of moral duty or responsibility to one’s loved ones, but instead takes on a new form, ultimately centered on my health and well-being, and the health and well-being of those I love.
I’ve come to see some simple truths about my personal self-determination and the myth of linear progression of history:
There is no going back to what life was like before I got sick.
The life I wanted before my illness, marked by overwork and the cult of busyness is not necessarily the life I want “on the other side” of illness.
More to the point, there is no “on the other side of the illness.”
Hurrying through illness, however much I want to, is a really bad idea.
My health is what it is, and must be taken as it is.
Health concerns must always form the basis of personal decision making but they do not define my identity.
To that end, I have a responsibility to self-care that I must take seriously
Illness and struggle is often a catalyst for growth; it asks us to take big, bold steps when we don’t feel those steps are possible.
Big bold steps often challenge the status quo
Taking big, bold steps requires razor-sharp focus, persistence and determination through fire
Taking big, bold steps also means recognizing that often things happen for no reason. They just happen, forcing us to confront our life wherever it is we are at.
The common view of history as a linear progression sometimes makes it easy to forget that history is way more complicated. Instead of being about personal actions and their causes/effects, history is actually made up of lots and lots of chance encounters, interacting with personal actions, causes/effects.
Contrary to the belief that success is opportunity meeting preparation, the things we often define as ‘successful’ are more often than not related to random chance, interaction with our actions and their causes/effects.
When we begin to think that we control our destiny through our own efforts, through our hard work, through the work we do with our hands, fingers, shoulders, head or back, we willfully choose to neglect entire swathes of random events that interact in so many different ways with our actions.
There is no world in which I can take any blame at all, for anything that happened to be. It was chance, the wrong kinds of cells in the wrong place, and at the wrong time.
I just got sick. My body grew a tumour. It just happened.
Even now, as I write this, I’m on a full dose of Prozac1, high doses of which are regular frontline treatment for PTSD. The drugs, coursing through my veins are what is allowing me the ability to get out of bed, and sit here and write.
Just as I claim no blame for my illness, I can take no credit for my paltry success.
Life happens, whether we want it to, or not.
The more powerless I feel about the world around me, the more I begin to realize that powerlessness isn’t a bad place to be. It’s almost cliché, but it is true what they say — it is when you are at your most vulnerable, when you willingly surrender your power, that you are at your strongest.
While listening to Tim Ferris being interviewed on the Ezra Klein Show, I was struck yet again by one of the overbearing realities of life with an illness. Describing a time in his life when he suffered from Lyme Disease, the productivity guru and author of the business bestseller 4 Hour Work Week, Ferris said,
Making health number one is a binary decision. If you say my health is number one but you compromise 20% of the time, [on an important call, whatever,] you’re going to compromise exactly when it’s important that you don’t compromise.
Continuing, he finished his pitch on prioritizing health:
In that state, I didn’t know how I was going to feel a week later, much less 6 months later. So I said no to effectively everything: anything that forced me to look at a calendar in the future, I said no… Conceptually it’s easy to say for us to say at the start of the year, “This year, I going to say no to more things, health is number 1” but when you translate that into day to day behaviour and expectations, it’s very, very difficult.
“So where does this leave you now, as a person deeply impacted by the severity of your near-death experience, limited in your ability to ‘produce’ work, at least as it comes to the definition of the word?”
I’m glad you asked!
Part № 2 will be available for all paid subscribers in the coming days.
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I have since switched to Zoloft, as Prozac was not providing sustained relief. I am grateful for a primary care provider who is willing to play with my meds when I need it.