As part of my brain rewiring process, I am identifying and reexamining my beliefs and values in order to see whether they are true to my deepest self or just what I've been taught or conditioned to believe. One of these values is hard work. What does it mean to be a hard worker, and is this something that I believe to be important? I have always had a unique definition of hard work that does not necessarily include long hours of paid work or completing difficult tasks. As a young adult I valued hard work in the sense of being busy all the time, being engaged politically, and being intellectually challenged. When I am not constantly busy and engaged in activist and intellectual pursuits, I tend to feel very antsy and anxious. Hard work has served as an escape mechanism, a way to avoid the "hard work" of feeling my emotions. Over the past several years I have begun to slow down, taking more time for relaxation, relationships, and rest. This slowing down has allowed many complicated emotions, desires, and hangups to emerge during the silent still moments. And yet, from the outside most people still see me as a hard worker, and often comment on this. I don't feel like I am actually a hard worker at this point, but it is notable that so many others around me seem to think so. Where is the disconnect between my perceptions of myself and those of other people in my life? Does this brain rewiring process itself constitute hard work? Is "positive" hard work okay or desirable? Is it only hard if you don't enjoy the work? I have no answers for this at the moment, but would love to hear from any of you. How do you define hard work, and is it something that you value?
nice....
ReplyDeleteAs a young 18 year old, construction "Hard Work" created an envelope for me a middle class kid with a lot of advantages. tall, white, male and a lot of guilt over these. to be forced into a position where I needed to be a subordinate to many people...over and over, whom enjoyed making me eat dirt...well insulation or sand actually, yet, cause there is purpose in work, getting paid, learning skills and social pressures to function within it....
It became therapy, and a playing field leveler for me. it can give heart to apathetic assholes, and make a mentor out of anyone by creating a setting where a strict hierarchy needs to function well to get something done, it insists that you play by its rules, and if it works out, it's a common trip that you forged with other coworkers, the harder the work, the more you remember it, and them.
I find it hard to top...
Thanks for sharing this experience, I have very few experiences with physically challenging work so it's interesting to hear your experiences with construction. I'm curious how machismo factored into how hierarchy functioned in that environment. That must have been a huge change for you, especially since you also came from an artistic background.
DeleteThis continues to be a question for me. Others still generally experience me as a "hard worker", or maybe "highly productive", and I still don't see myself that way. I do produce a lot, because there's this internal motor towards output that feels pretty consistent and quite large. And, I have slowed down a lot over this past 10 years, yet most people would still classify me this way.
ReplyDeleteInternally, I am so aware of all the times I am *not* being productive, the wasted time and the resting, and the lolligagging. And yet, in all of that I still hear the judgment, the discomfort with spaciousness, with restfulness, with "pointless" pastimes. This is an area where I feel the loooong sloooow shift toward slowness. Things are profoundly different than they were a decade ago, and yet I'm still on the high end of Doing and Productivity.
I think I am oriented toward "hard work" as in, challenge is what I seek, in all areas. It's really hard for me to engage in work that is easy. I'd much rather be challenged than bored. And yet, at what point is it an obsession? Perhaps it is an addiction to the nervous system state of hypervigilance needed for navigating the novel, risky terrain of challenge. Perhaps this is why mastery has been so much less appealing than producing more new things. And, while I do enjoy and appreciate this experience at times, I'd like to have more choice and variety in how I approach things. And so, my word for 2023 is Iterate. As I practice what I've already tried, it will get less challenging over time, easier. Perhaps this can help me find options other than "challenging, hard work" as ways to offer my gifts and revel in my joys in this lifetime.