I am a workaholic.

Workaholic Owl by Redilion on DevianArt

It's true.  In elementary school I stayed up late re-organizing the furniture in my room.  In high school I stayed up late working on dozens of paintings for my AP Art class portfolio.  In college I pretty much always took 18 credits of classes on top of working a part-time job twenty hours a week.  The past 14 years I worked in the non-profit world and I almost always brought some work home with me.  Now that I'm a mom and work full-time, I've gotten a little better at leaving work at work, but I still check my work email on my phone at home. or on the way home. or before work.  Even when I'm at work, I always feel compelled to write just one more email before I take my lunch break.  (Which means I either forget to take lunch, am late meeting co-workers for lunch, or remember at 3pm and then give up and just eat a snack at my desk).

WHY DO I DO THIS???!!!

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http://www.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Beehive-State.png

 I blame Utah.  At least partially.  I am a bonafide Utahn, so maybe it's hard to separate the blame from the person.  (Now maybe not all of these activities can be considered "work," but it's the act of keeping oneself "busy" all the time that gets to the heart of it).  The roots of my identity are anchored by the Utah Pioneers, both in genetics and cultural heritage.
I AM the "Beehive State."  The industry, hard work, and (can we call it art?) of busy-ness that Utah so proudly stands for, runs through my veins.  Unfortunately, I also inherited the guilt and self-righteous attitude that comes along with the belief that sacrificing your personal needs for the needs of others is noble and the act of "being productive" and staying "busy" makes you valuable and righteous and worthy of love... 

When I was in elementary school I got paid to do extra chores for my mom like folding socks (she gave me 10 cents per pair and I actually made decent money for an eight year old) -- genius. She also paid me to help organize the unfinished portion of the basement (or did she?)  I did this several times.  (Talk about being busy for the sake of being busy).  There were mountains of laundry that either needed to be washed or folded, bags of random craft supplies, clearance Christmas decorations and random fabric and sewing patterns (for future projects that would never get completed, or even started).  Maybe I did it because I just felt the need to get rid of trivial "stuff."  It's just stuff right? (My siblings and I call that part of the basement "the landfill," or the "dungeon", and yes, it still exists. Once it's clean, mom just buys new "stuff" to fill it up again.  "It was on sale"). I've since given up on that endeavor.  (Though I could probably get easily get roped into doing it again if I believed it would actually stay clean and organized).


I'm glad my parents taught us that you need to work to get things that you want.  I don't know if it was out of necessity or if they were intentionally trying to instill in us the value of hard work, but either way, I think we got the message.  My grandma genuinely embodied the value of hard work and sacrifice throughout her life. My four siblings and I took turns going to her house on Saturdays after my grandpa died (brain cancer).  On our day, she would pick one of us up at our house in Sandy and drive us back to her house in South Salt Lake for a day with grandma.  We loved it.  It typically looked like this: we would help her do a small house project like planting her tomatoes and marigolds or painting a section of the fence, or helping her organize the garage, and she would pay us $20 for maybe 2 hours of work.  Then she'd get us KFC or Arctic Circle for lunch and we'd bring it back to her house to eat on real dishes and drink sprite with bendy straws in the kitchen.  Next we'd play card games all afternoon on the kitchen table with her and our aunt while eating cookies and fudge and rice krispy treats until it was time to go back home -- it was the best.  That's how it was in my family -- even play days with grandma involved some kind of "project," no matter how small.  I'm fairly certain my grandma did it to instill in us the value of hard work (and to give her an excuse to give us money).  

I started working my first "real job" at 14, mainly so I could earn money to get gear and passes to go snowboarding with my friends.  I had a paper route every day for maybe a year (where I had to wake up at 4am to deliver newspapers on my bike, or from the back of my dad's Chevy blazer when I woke up late--poor dad, sorry I roped you into it too!).  I also worked at my dad's Packaging Store occasionally on Saturdays, until I turned 16. Once I started high school and could legally work up front and handle cash, I started working after-school too and even took work release my senior year so I could work full-time hours and save up money for my dream of going to Europe after I graduated...

I'm not quite sure what the moral of this story is, except to say that for me, working has always been an important part of my life.  Now that I'm a mother, that needs to change.  Not the working part, because obviously being a mom is hard work.  And working a full-time job and being a mom is also very hard work.  What needs to change is the value I put in "work" and tying my sense of self-worth to the "work" I do.  Honestly, the reason that I have always worked in the non-profit industry up until now is probably because it helped me feel proud and important and "busy" while helping people and the community at large.  

Now that I have a job in the corporate world for the first time, I am realizing that I have come to a crossroads.  For the first time in my working career, I don't feel an outside pressure or guilty feeling prompting me to work all the time -- that's one of the things that attracted me to the company I work for now -- they make intentional efforts to encourage a healthy work-life balance and strive to keep employees happy.  I also do not have the luxury of working as much or as long as I want to, or as much as I pressure myself to, because now I am a mother and that is my top priority (and I have to pick at daycare before 6pm every day).  Yet, despite this flexibility and major change in my identity and purpose, the pressure I feel to work all the time has not changed.  (The ridiculous part of all of this is that although I am very good at "keeping busy," I am not always the best at "being productive" and accomplishing tasks in a timely fashion.  I get involved in too many projects at once, which actually makes me less productive in the long run).  Maybe that's why "workaholic" is a fitting diagnosis for my condition.  No matter what the "job" or "project," I always tend to pressure myself to "do" or "accomplish" something at all times during the day, even when I'm not "working."   It's true that I value hard work and take pride in the work I do, but I struggle every day to let myself stop working and simply enjoy the small beautiful moments that make up our rich lives, like going to the playground with my adorable child and husband after work, or eating a picnic together on the porch, or taking a hot bubble bath, or just sitting in stillness for a moment or two to admire the mountains without "doing" anything.  

source: quotesfest.com/download/fdfa41e6bd5ff3248c7ed2e0ffbafd83f3b97c5a.html

If the first step in overcoming addiction is admitting you have a problem, then check!  I have a problem.  (Don't get me wrong, I don't feel hopeless.  I've made some small progress in trying to be more present with my son and making time to be in the moment, but I still definitely have a problem).  So what is the next step in ending the addiction to work?  How do I overcome my workaholism? (I'm pretty sure I made that word up).