I’m 27, and for all those years, I’ve bought into what I was told: that hard work meant happiness. That 15-hour days were impressive, and that working through lunch was how you got ahead. Sure, take a nap if you want, but do so with the knowledge that someone else is contributing to society while you’re slacking off.
My grandfather made his living in his 20s mending nets on the Fraser River. He chain-smoked like an idiot, and would often work two or three days straight without sleep and only a sandwich or two for sustenance. He got paid based on how many pounds of fish he caught. Lunch meant spending money, but it also meant not getting paid for 10 minutes. As such, I don’t eat much while I work, and will always, forever, associate cigarettes with hard-working, blue-collar jobs.
If you’re still unclear about how stories impact generations, that’s how.
Flow—the psychological term for a decreased sense of time, self, and environment that happens when immersed in a fulfilling activity—sometimes invigorates us, and, really, is a more descriptive and encompassing term for productivity.
But what happens when productivity doesn’t feel productive? What makes it productive, exactly? Is it the work you complete, the feeling you get during it, or the long-term payouts of it—a degree framed on your wall, a paycheck, or letters after your name? I’d venture to say all three, but I’m not so sure. Not anymore.
I was up at 6:45 this morning, scarfing down a breakfast burrito, and hunched over a pile of textbooks by 7:00. I kept stopping every few minutes, gazing out the window at the cerulean dusk and taking prolonged sips of coffee. Something was… just… off. There was no enjoyment to any of it, despite it being a perfect morning on paper. But I wasn’t sad or depressed. In the New York Times on April 19, American psychologist Adam Grant called languishing the dominant emotion of 2021.
He also suggested work as a remedy to the emotion, but I don’t think work does anything to your emotions other than bury them further away and give you a more productive escape than, say, a 3 Musketeers bar at 2:00 or a dry martini at 5:00.
The issue isn’t so much working from home as it is the incessant stagnancy of life under COVID. The isolation and uncertainty has become as much of a regular commodity as oxygen or water. It might lay dormant, but time turns it malignant; it pops up in peculiar ways, no matter how much we stay focused on the goals of the week rather than the emotions of the day. It’s important to remember that in this world, no matter how productive the day is, there’s still portions of it missing: a hug, a laugh with colleague in the break room, or a dinner inside your favourite restaurant. The fact that you notice it missing is a good thing. If life like this stops feeling empty, run.
Being productive doesn’t just mean finishing a paper and doing laundry on your break then studying for Monday’s lab; it means being able to feel as though you’re part of a college community—a global community—while doing it, and I miss that.
But, hey, in September, I won’t have to miss it anymore. I might risk my health at this point just to get it back.
For 27 years, I’ve bought into what I was told, but today I’m ready to change that.
This was such a nice read. I have heard that work solves all mental health issues so many times , burying everything ,which would eventually burst out. Thanks!