I enjoyed this read so much. I hope one day you'll read the book Garden City. In fact I'll send it to you. It's about exactly this. We were not made to have our work be our identity or our meaning. But once we off load those burdens from work, work in fact can be a beautiful thing.
And I look forward to continuing to read the beautiful things you post here!
Thank you Steven. That is so well put! What's the book about? I'd love to read it!
I actually struggled with this essay because the words didn't come easy, I felt I kept running into blocks inside me re work scripts/gender scripts that I had yet to unpack. So I appreciate your support and encouragement - thanks for reading as always. :)
Damn, what a power piece 👏🏽 So much of what you say speaks to me. I especially loved these nuggets:
"Work can be the way I join my husband in bringing alive our dreams as a family, and work can be the way I get away from the expectation of babymaking and caregiving. Work is my doorway to new social situations, my license to travel, and my gateway to new, unfamiliar worlds."
"Even at its worst, getting to work is freedom. At its best, getting to work is self-discovery and self-care."
Work is a means to define myself beyond the identity-roles of wife, mother, caregiver. Yet, I don't define my identity through work.
Thanks Rachael! Yess it took me a long time to see that work scripts come with both good and bad, and work scripts just *are* and there's no need to be ideological about it either way if I can make it work for me. I am glad to hear that it speaks to you as well - this is something that surprises me each time I hear it from someone who lives far away and in a wildly different reality than mine! <3
Really enjoyed this piece and the complexities you're addressing here. Both having the freedom to work while also trying to balance a pressure to overwork!
You know I was telling you how sticky my words were being Michelle, gooey, resinous, not flowing lol... I wasn't super proud of the way I treated the complexity amid my words just choosing not to cooperate with me. But I'm trying to cure myself of perfectionism, embrace that I'm finite and that I won't always be fully in touch with my aliveness always. Thanks for reading and supporting me!
As an afterthought, I created a short concept book that is available to read online that I have barely mentioned to anyone. It's about the value and joy of just Being. The fact that I have barely mentioned it to a soul proves your point about non-work being taboo. But here's a link to it in case you're interested. www.unbrandedself.com (I recommend you turn your sound off while reading it, otherwise you hear distracting page turning sounds.)
I ENJOYED THIS BOOK SO MUCH Rick!! Thank you for sharing it - I am so grateful to have read it when I did. The day you posted the comment, I was exhausted by work and working through some heavy stuff that had been coming up for me in therapy. I went through the book in one sitting, and I remember telling myself I need to let myself just be... to find that the spaces inside me are actually still there, that I can get in touch with my presence if I let the spaces have some air.
Ohh am I glad this genie is out of the bottle. I think I want to print it out and keep it as a coffee table book of some kind. Is it available in print anywhere? Thank you for sharing it.
I'd love to hear how you've navigated the non-work taboo if ever. You seem like someone who has really embraced his presence even in his work. For me, those two things always seem to be in tension. I can't seem to be calm, collected, regulated and present when I have to be on, in work mode, always performing and staying on top of things. I end up getting high strung and flattening myself into a branding version of myself even though I viscerally resist that idea so much.
I'm so happy you found it useful Malavika. Thanks so much for telling me. There's a lot we could share with each other on this subject it seems. I'll PM you to pick up the conversation.
I certainly knew this was true in North America, that enjoying life outside of work is basically taboo, but I didn't know that went on in other cultures. The work expectation you describe is completely baked into my operating system. So much so that I don't even consciously know it's an option to do something else until I get a thoughtful reminder like this. This is a brave article to be talking about working being optional! How dare you? ha ha. I'm grateful today for your daring. Maybe I'll go for a walk in the woods.
How interesting to hear this, Rick. There's always a tendency to assume one is alone in one's afflictions... hearing from you that it could be the same thing even across the seven seas reminds me that no one is super alone ever. Thank you for sharing. Is it a taboo that especially grips men? Can women get away with not working like we can here?
That's a good question. I think historically that work connected to earning money has been more saddled on men, but then here the expectations on women to take care of everything else home related is another version of the expectation to work. Those divisions of labor are older models, more applicable to my generation. Not sure if those gender assignments are felt as acutely by younger generations. But personally for me, yes, I feel the pressure of a male model to be a bread winner and to always be working. It's an intentional act that is required just to BE.
I enjoyed this read so much. I hope one day you'll read the book Garden City. In fact I'll send it to you. It's about exactly this. We were not made to have our work be our identity or our meaning. But once we off load those burdens from work, work in fact can be a beautiful thing.
And I look forward to continuing to read the beautiful things you post here!
Thank you Steven. That is so well put! What's the book about? I'd love to read it!
I actually struggled with this essay because the words didn't come easy, I felt I kept running into blocks inside me re work scripts/gender scripts that I had yet to unpack. So I appreciate your support and encouragement - thanks for reading as always. :)
Damn, what a power piece 👏🏽 So much of what you say speaks to me. I especially loved these nuggets:
"Work can be the way I join my husband in bringing alive our dreams as a family, and work can be the way I get away from the expectation of babymaking and caregiving. Work is my doorway to new social situations, my license to travel, and my gateway to new, unfamiliar worlds."
"Even at its worst, getting to work is freedom. At its best, getting to work is self-discovery and self-care."
Work is a means to define myself beyond the identity-roles of wife, mother, caregiver. Yet, I don't define my identity through work.
Thanks Rachael! Yess it took me a long time to see that work scripts come with both good and bad, and work scripts just *are* and there's no need to be ideological about it either way if I can make it work for me. I am glad to hear that it speaks to you as well - this is something that surprises me each time I hear it from someone who lives far away and in a wildly different reality than mine! <3
Really enjoyed this piece and the complexities you're addressing here. Both having the freedom to work while also trying to balance a pressure to overwork!
You know I was telling you how sticky my words were being Michelle, gooey, resinous, not flowing lol... I wasn't super proud of the way I treated the complexity amid my words just choosing not to cooperate with me. But I'm trying to cure myself of perfectionism, embrace that I'm finite and that I won't always be fully in touch with my aliveness always. Thanks for reading and supporting me!
As an afterthought, I created a short concept book that is available to read online that I have barely mentioned to anyone. It's about the value and joy of just Being. The fact that I have barely mentioned it to a soul proves your point about non-work being taboo. But here's a link to it in case you're interested. www.unbrandedself.com (I recommend you turn your sound off while reading it, otherwise you hear distracting page turning sounds.)
I ENJOYED THIS BOOK SO MUCH Rick!! Thank you for sharing it - I am so grateful to have read it when I did. The day you posted the comment, I was exhausted by work and working through some heavy stuff that had been coming up for me in therapy. I went through the book in one sitting, and I remember telling myself I need to let myself just be... to find that the spaces inside me are actually still there, that I can get in touch with my presence if I let the spaces have some air.
Ohh am I glad this genie is out of the bottle. I think I want to print it out and keep it as a coffee table book of some kind. Is it available in print anywhere? Thank you for sharing it.
I'd love to hear how you've navigated the non-work taboo if ever. You seem like someone who has really embraced his presence even in his work. For me, those two things always seem to be in tension. I can't seem to be calm, collected, regulated and present when I have to be on, in work mode, always performing and staying on top of things. I end up getting high strung and flattening myself into a branding version of myself even though I viscerally resist that idea so much.
I'm so happy you found it useful Malavika. Thanks so much for telling me. There's a lot we could share with each other on this subject it seems. I'll PM you to pick up the conversation.
I certainly knew this was true in North America, that enjoying life outside of work is basically taboo, but I didn't know that went on in other cultures. The work expectation you describe is completely baked into my operating system. So much so that I don't even consciously know it's an option to do something else until I get a thoughtful reminder like this. This is a brave article to be talking about working being optional! How dare you? ha ha. I'm grateful today for your daring. Maybe I'll go for a walk in the woods.
How interesting to hear this, Rick. There's always a tendency to assume one is alone in one's afflictions... hearing from you that it could be the same thing even across the seven seas reminds me that no one is super alone ever. Thank you for sharing. Is it a taboo that especially grips men? Can women get away with not working like we can here?
That's a good question. I think historically that work connected to earning money has been more saddled on men, but then here the expectations on women to take care of everything else home related is another version of the expectation to work. Those divisions of labor are older models, more applicable to my generation. Not sure if those gender assignments are felt as acutely by younger generations. But personally for me, yes, I feel the pressure of a male model to be a bread winner and to always be working. It's an intentional act that is required just to BE.