By EK Wills
There is a lot of talk around the topic of stress and being overwhelmed. But when we start labeling the result with terms like burnout we are saying that the limit is reached.
Then there are those that try to attribute the feeling to the fault of the person by saying that they are not resilient enough or not creating a work life balance that leads to the breaking point.
In a time where productivity is heralded as the most important result, the idea of taking time to meditate is often seen as slacking off or as a waste of precious time when you could be achieving more.
This last pay cycle I overdid it. I knew that doing a conference presentation as well as governance meetings on top of the regular hours would be a lot, so I tried to compensate. just for a couple of weeks, I decided not to do my usual 6 day week, by foregoing the extra 12.5 hour overtime shift in order to create that elusive work life balance. We spent Father’s Day together as a family but we had a trip to the orthodontist in there as well.
What resulted was a serious dent in the budget, putting the pressure back on and offsetting the idea of having a break from the grind.
The news is full of people trying to find ways to meet the insatiable wants of society, doing sex work to pay for school fees and botox, or stealing from others opportunistically in positions of responsibility. We shake our heads at the desperate lengths that people go to but what about when we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed with the incoming bills and lack of time to work enough to pay it all?
When the response from experts is to point to lack of resilience or lack of work-life balance, they cite the need to talk to someone about it. But what if your job does not allow the autonomy to control the amount of work you can do? What if you try to organize and plan your workload only to be given more when you finally finish one task? Case in point, this week I was handed another presentation to do the day after I had finished the last one. Even my lack of enthusiasm and honesty about not wanting to do the next one did not have the desired effect.
It seems that the only way to actually achieve the fabled balance is to actually break down and cry or stamp your foot. Either way you are deemed incompetent or not being a team player.
And while the economy sags and wages are capped at a 2.5% rise under an already unfair award, we will continue to feel the squeeze, and have to listen to complaints of how badly the system is run but also how everyone’s hands are tied because of the system itself.
In the meantime, I’m going to bed to read a good book – nothing like a little escapism after a good rant.
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