I don’t like people who work too much. It’s not that they’re necessarily doing it on purpose, but some do not need to be urged to work harder. Some do not need to be chided that there is work to be done. Some just see the work and they get it done, whether that completion comes at 4:59 in the afternoon or 9:28 in the evening or never at all. When there is work to be done, some just go about the work getting it done. This is the ethic that our fine country subscribed to, and succeeded through. This is also the ethic that causes us to forfeit stronger bonds with our young children and severs once strong ties we had with our parents, our aunts, our grandparents. Work, it seems, is killing us.
It is. And I see it all the time in my clients and I’m seeing it more and more in myself. To work too little when opportunity presents is shameful, but to work too much is no lesser of an evil. We wear it as a badge of honor, this work. To work late and to rise early, it’s some sort of prize. To work Saturdays and then Sundays too isn’t something that we should be proud of, it’s something we should fight, even if my clients sometimes see me not working and shake their head, as if I should never, ever stop working. Productivity is great, and reaching to the next rung on the economic ladder gives us fulfillment and our children new shoes and it drapes our counters in marble, but is it everything? And if it isn’t, why do our schedules prove us to be liars?
This weekend, this Labor Day Weekend, let’s rest. Let’s fill our lungs with summer, and let’s swim. If you’re swimming this weekend for the first time all summer, then it’s obvious to me as it should be to you that you’ve utterly and completely failed at everything. September holds redemption, but it will be fleeting. Find some balance this weekend, and figure out how to make it last. And remember, when I say “let’s” do these fun things as though I’ll be joining you, I won’t be. I’ll be working. I desperately want that knife set. Happy Labor Day Weekend.
Wilmette, pictured above, is still available. It shouldn’t be. Come buy it. It’s lake home perfection. I’m back Tuesday with a post about a great big monster lakefront sale that I didn’t like all that much.