You know, I've written this twice now and probably a half-dozen ways in my head, but none of them come out right. A friend of mine said in email last week that brevity conveys meaning more effectively, so let me start my thesis like this:
Fuck you. Okay? Do I have your attention for a minute? Good, 'cause fuck you. Fuck you if your job is the most important thing in your life.
You may not even realize it, you know that? Addicts never do. Work is a drug, just like all the rest of 'em. Don't believe me? Okay, how about this: people spend all their time freaking out if they don't have it, trying as hard as they can to get a better one, it makes them happy sometimes and at others depressed to all ends, and in the end it depletes them of happiness and joy. Quick, am I talking about a bag of heroin or your jobs? And, maybe then, like most addicts you don't quite realize it yet and no amount of words, angry or pleading, are going to get you to realize it.
I know this -- I'm an addict of a kind myself.
Those of you who know me even marginally may say that its easy for me to sit here smugly when I've got a fairly cushy job that pays for my house and my car and all that. Pays me quite well to that end. Yeah. You're right. It is pretty cushy because I can sit here and look at all this bullshit around me and realize it for what it is. These are not hollow words for me: I gave up $30,000 a year in addition to what I make now for the sole reason that I am happier because of it. I used to live on around $5,000 a year when I was in college for a while and, looking back, the stuff that made me happy or kept me from it wasn't the house I was living in or the stuff I could or could not afford.
Think back for a minute to your happiest moment. I mean, not a good time from a week ago, but your happiest moment. The moment that you felt like crying because everything in the world, for that moment, seemed utterly perfect and you just sort of felt that flowing from you.
Was it at work?
Hell no it wasn't. Wherever it was, it wasn't at work. Think about that for a moment when you take a couple of extra hours to finish up some stuff at the office.
. . .
Now, don't get me wrong. Work can be a wonderful thing. When you're in a place where you can make a positive difference by being there, where your value as a person, not just as another contributor to the bottom line but as a person is recognized, that's a good place. Where your layoff won't be arbitrarily made but sweated every minute by not only your supervisor, but everybody on the ladder above them. Where you are not somebody else's bitch. Those are good places to be, healthy places. And they exist -- out of five jobs, I've landed three like that.
But even then, work has its place. Maybe especially then, because it is only family that will make ridiculous demands of you and you respond without thinking about it a second time.
. . .
What kills me is how well my friends who make work secondary to other considerations in their lives have flourished and those who have made it their chief concern have failed. Even in the extreme most cases, guys (and the occasional gal, though they tend to be more grounded about such things) who have gone and chased whatever it is that drives them perhaps to the exclusion of the common notion of "a good future" have ended up far happier than even those of us who find that more gentle balance.
Happiness, as they say, can't be bought. So why are you selling yours so cheaply? These are the days that you should be spending having adventures and falling in love and nurturing your family, for fuck's sake. For fuck's sake. Because you know what? It only gets harder to do that later. You can switch jobs if you squandered your chances at your present one to be seen as an "up and comer", but goddamn you if you think for half a second that these years you miss can just be made up. Your kid isn't going to give you that opportunity. Those moments are lost, the most precious ones. Your family isn't going to find your corner office consoling when its an empty dinner table for the third time that week because mom or dad had to stay late at the office again because, you know, they're up against a deadline again.
And don't think that its just suddenly, violla, going to get easier. Where did you get that idea? If you're in a job where you are dumped a bunch of stuff and continuously handle it, do you think that they are going to promote you to a job that gets easier? I've been promoted, this is what its about. Added responsibilities. That's why the big man gets so much cash, should anyways. Make him think about what the hell he's doing, for one. For two, because he's got to worry about what each one of his people is doing for him at that very moment and whether he's going to be in business in six months. Life at the top of the food chain isn't going to be any easier, friend of mine. There's a reason that lions have muscles and flowers do not.
. . .
So this is the part that kills me. The rest of that stuff just pains me, pains me that you're pissing it all away. The part that kills me is this: its just going to get worse. Missing a night here or there is no big deal now, but at one point it was. Maybe next time it will be a weekend. And that will suck. The first time. After the fourth or fifth time you won't think a thing of it. I've seen it. That's what happens when things become routine -- all the sting gets taken out of it. And what a bleak path that is? Where does that go? Guess its okay to miss graduation since hell, missed the last of the kids birthdays and am not really sure I'm going to have a family much longer anyways. That's a nice place to be going.
You know where that goes? You've seen it: that stern old guy driving around dressed in a 20-year outdated suit and tie sitting tight-lippedly with his wife in the seat next to him, not talking. The old guy with the office duds and the hat, sitting in the park because he has nowhere better to go and nobody better to do it with. That's where that road leads.
Not going there? Let me tell you how addict behavior starts. I've studied this firsthand and have talked to junkies, cokeheads, drunks, foodies and every other variety of addict and they all think the same thing at the time: this is not happening to me. They always think of it as "that" at the time, of course, the addictive process. "Oh, no, its just a drink" or whatever. "Its not going to harm me." And then its two, and three, and five, and then you stop counting because its a bit too painful to count anymore, and besides, you lose track. And each time you noticing things getting bigger and bigger and more and more out of hand you keep telling yourself, "no, it's okay, I've got things in check. They were sliding before but goddamnit I'm on top of things now." Until one day it hits you and suddenly you realize how bad things have gotten. And there's no way out.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is addiction. And what a great drug it is, too. There's these great rushes coming from promotions and raises and "employee of the month" pictures and, best of all, a crack at a Real Future! And its not like you're doing it for filthy lucre, are you? Nope. You're doing it for good, honest reasons. Maybe you want to provide for your family, or be able to raise your family comfortably. Maybe you want to get established, find some stability. All good reasons. None of us starts our addictions by saying "gee, I'd like to be miserable down the road, could you arrange that for me please?" We're having a good time, and lost in the moment.
And so are you.
Looking back over this, I've already said too much. There's so much I want to say that I could write a book about it. A giant flaming diatribe. I'll stop now, though, because ultimately it won't do any good. As an addict, let me tell you that no amount of outside pressure is going to make you do a goddamned thing. Because hey, you've got the world in check, right? Everything is going to turn out just fine. A little rough now, but you'll get through it. Okay, I hear you.
Take with you this: the next time you miss something cool because you "had to work", remember these words: fuck you. Thats it. Next time you work through dinner or come in on a weekend. Remember this. Take that with you. Next time you can't see your family when you want to, think of those words. Because every time you do that, it kills me a little bit.
And I love you guys too much to see you do that to yourselves.