[ad_1]
What is the Protestant Work Ethic, or is it the Puritan Work Ethic (PWE)? To put it succinctly, for me, the PWE means you have no worth (in society, your family and to yourself) unless you are productive each and every day and you get all your work done before you take time to play. The trouble is there never is any time to play because there is always more work to do.
Right here, right now I am declaring a war on the PWE and the idea that a To Do List completely checked off at the end of the day is a valid reason to feel virtuous and satisfied with myself.
Raised in the country, every day chores came first, then school, then homework, and then play which was a book to read or an hour of TV before bed time. Ah, but there were the weekends you say. My childhood home had three acres of lawn and trees, plus a barn with horses and chickens all of which needed to be to be cleaned up in one way or another, so Saturday mornings were spent working.
My father euphemistically called Saturday morning chores, the “Saturday Olympics,” and the competition was who of the four kids could complete their jobs first. By the age of 10, I was seriously afflicted with my father’s PWE modus operandi. Until the chores were done, there was no play even on weekends.
Now in my 60’s, after a life time of work and almost no play, I retired and had to confront what was I to do to keep this PWE and the self-esteem it accorded me in working order? I am an artist and writer, but I cannot “create” 8 hours a day, so what was I to do with the “free” time that I now had. For true PWE types, there is no such thing as free time. If you are not being “productive” you are wasting time, valuable time, that could be spent doing something worth while for yourself, and for others. My solution: 9 months after I retired, I moved alone, across the country to a community where I knew no one, forcing me to “get to work” making friends and getting involved.
Now, after four years of non-stop volunteering for my church, a Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, which runs on the sweat of volunteers committed to good works, and for my community, namely the downtown revitalization effort, I am exhausted, nor have I learned to play which retirement is supposed to be about.
Too much of a good thing, eventually becomes a bad thing and that is where I am standing at the moment. Belief in the virtue of the Protestant Work Ethic has left me burned out, exhausted and suffering from a sore left shoulder. In fact it is my shoulder that I have to thank for this little essay, for when my body screams at me, I know it is just a physical manifestation of a non-physical issue that I need to give some serious thought to. Having spent a life time with my “shoulder to the wheel,” it is time to stop, think and think out loud on paper (electronic paper that is) and figure this out. (Yes, I am a firm believer in the body-mind connection, a subject for future essays, I promise.)
The real culprit is, of course, my deeply engrained belief, that “work” is good and play is… well if not exactly bad, certainly frivolous and wasteful. Yes, of course I know all the research about the importance of play in “refueling” one’s energy tanks in order to return to the work of one’s life, but I never really bought in to any of that. How could I? The PWE owned me, inside and out, consciously and more importantly, unconsciously.
I believe it is one’s beliefs, those deep, mostly unconscious ones, that create our realities which is why chanting affirmations of what one wishes to have, as touted in the bestseller, “The Secret,” does not work if those affirmations run counter to one’s core beliefs. My core belief in the virtue of work is not unconscious, but the depth, breath, and scope of this belief was, until I began to really look, write and question it.
“Why is work such a good thing? Who told you that? Who sold you that bill of goods?”
The answer was of course my self-evident truth… BECAUSE IT IS. Everyone knows work is good, that you need to work to get ahead, to earn your rightful and esteemed place in society. No one likes a slacker or those free-loaders living off the sweat of others. Where would we be if our early pioneers and founding fathers hadn’t worked hard?
Of course, I learned my PWE at the elbow of my parents, namely my father, who was among other things, a Boy Scout leader and tireless community volunteer. No surprise then that I became a social worker.
But, too much of a good thing eventually becomes a bad thing. So how do I undo such a belief or at least modify it to allow fun and play to creep in?
The first thing I had to ask myself was, “What is the opposite of being an industrious, efficient worker,” because while that was my goal all these years, I must also have been trying to avoid being the opposite… a lazy, free-loading slacker. I hate lazy, free-loading slackers. I hate people who don’t carry their own weight. I hate doing other people’s work for them.
The next question is not for the cowardly. What is so bad about being a lazy, free-loading slacker? To those afflicted with the PWE that is like asking, what is wrong with cannibalism?
What is wrong with laziness, and being a free-loader? Are you kidding? What isn’t wrong with it? Bluster, stutter, stammer, choke! Next question?
Again, what is so terrible about being a lazy, free-loading slacker? Peel the onion. Keep asking the impossible questions. Keep challenging those self-evident beliefs.
You (I) could also ask such things as, who was a lazy, free-loading slacker in your life, in your childhood? Whose work did you do for them when it was all wrong? Were you put in a grown-up role when you were still a child? Who have you spent a life-time trying to avoid being like?
Now, here is the rub. That which we hate most in others is what we also hate in ourselves. It is just the flip side to the same coin our greatest virtue lives on. The problem is we hate to admit that flip side even exists, but it does. So if you have enough personal courage to face your dark side-those characteristics you hate the most in others-then you should accept that side of yourself, forgive yourself, and then, forgive those you have been trying not to be like all your life. Ouch! Forgive the lazy, no good, free-loading slackers? This is hard.
Now, go one step further. Consider if you wouldn’t secretly like to be one of those lazy, free loading, slackers? Ouch! This is HARD.
Wait… give me a moment… would I like to sometimes be lazy, to slack off, and to let others do my work? Oh, Universe, forgive me but… err, ah, geez, damn, I… I… I would. Lord have mercy but it hurts me to admit this.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Look again. What is so good about being a hard worker? Approval from others? Really? Well, maybe, even probably, but is it worth it? Is it really worth it? You might have needed those “at-a-girls” and “at-a-boys,” when you were little but do you need them now? Truly? Wouldn’t you rather be having some fun? Wouldn’t you rather be a little bit lazy? Wouldn’t you rather slack off a little? Ah, come on, admit it. Isn’t even just the idea starting to feel a tiny bit good?
Now, here is the real trick. If you are going to change your M.O., you have to do it in small, sometimes tiny steps. Big steps, fast steps, like the proverbial “hare,” result in pendulum swings which just bring you right back to where you started. When it comes to changing yourself, the tortoise wins the day.
What’s wrong with the Protestant Work Ethic? Nothing, unless it is all you know.
[ad_2]
Source by Carol L. MacAllister