I often notice people grinding non-stop and working really hard to accomplish their goals which is something I really appreciate and respect, but I often also see a disdain for not working hard enough, not trying hard enough, for feeling tired of it and wanting to give up.
I feel as if working incessantly to accomplish what one wants, or even needs(I’ll get to that in a minute) is the norm, and working extra hard is aspirational. I appreciate the idea for its emphasis on personal responsibility. But quite often it tends to ignore the fact that there's only so much one can do and the fact that different people may have very different needs that mayn’t be obvious. It also entrenches each of us into expecting perfection from one can expect or even hope to have their needs to met. And note I mentioned ‘needs’ and not ‘wants’. How I often see this playing out is in that when someone tries to have a conversation about something that's bothering them, the focus is turned back onto them and how they do things, and if they don't meet the subjective standards of the other, denying the conversation is well within the rights it would seem, again it's the conversation that I’m talking about, not a demand.
Such an emphasis on what one does and the end product, means that we often end up seeing only what one needs to do. This is good enough when works needs to be done and goes a long way in getting people to keep themselves and each other compliant, and even reduces conflict considerably. Which also means that work would carry on consistently even in the event of more than a couple of not so minor inconveniences.
But that's exactly the issue!
It keeps people too compliant and prevents them from asking important questions like why I am doing this? whom is this benefiting? is this harming anyone? and is this what I really want?
These are questions one is naturally inclined to ask(maybe some more than others) by virtue of being human, but these are the very questions framed as unnecessary in our larger society thanks to our upbringing. And honestly we’re only starting to be disillusioned as a society from seeing perfectionism as a virtue.
And beyond the fact that engaging with these questions, one’s wants, one's desires allows us to see what we may want to do on the longer run, this preoccupation with working also renders one incapable of being compassionate to another unless they feel the other has it bad enough, leaving us stuck in a twisted competition of who has it worse. This develops a politic of deservingness, leaving people too busy assessing whether the other really deserves their kindness, and rationing depending upon how deserving the other feels to the first.
All of this often ends up leaving us stuck in a twisted power struggle against no one and everyone all at once. Isolating each of us and further eroding the communities that one may share with others. And who stands to benefit from all of the above? Those in power, who most often by coincidence have landed in the cusp of generational wealth, high social standing, an entrepreneurial lottery, combinations of the earlier, and or in the overlap of various privileges stemming from gender, race, class, besides those mentioned earlier.
Funnily enough they too often beleive in the earlier mentioned paradigm of high levels of personal responsibility and capacity to control one’s own destiny ironically while they hold reigns of power largely by coincidence. this is also while we live in a world wherein power, capital and resources continue to get accumulated into the hands of those who already hold it.
All of the above aside, ask and engage with these questions because they’ll allow you to engage with yourself, your wants and desires in a more fulfuling way. To Survive sure is important, but so is it to Thrive.