This is the definition of workaholic from Dictionary.com: a person who works compulsively at the expense of other pursuits.
I have to admit, the shoe fits. Another definition states that the workaholic doesn't always enjoy their work--it's a compulsion. But I do like my work, which makes it doubly addicting. I always said, "I could never be a workaholic." And yet here I stand, "I'm Jennifer and I'm a workaholic." My eyes and fingers ache from typing but I can't stop.
They say you can't control addiction, but I'm doing my best. The initial flurry of excitement after publishing The Pet Washer has lessened. I am determined to set hours going forward. By sheer will power, I stay away from the computer when the kids are home. I've started exercising and cooking again after a month-long break.
Maybe there is a fine line between passion and addiction? This career suits my personality, my spirituality, my education, and my current circumstances to a T. I could not have planned a better job for myself. I am doing what I love. I'm not ready to check myself into rehab just yet.
I am spending today and the rest of the week editing my YA novel before I send it off to Hock's Editing Service. I know, it's like cleaning before the house cleaner comes but I see no way around it. I would as soon ask someone to clean a cluttered house as I would ask someone to edit a first draft. My work cannot leave my possession in the condition it's in right now. Eeegads! Let's get some lipstick on this pig!
To Do: Don't follow my advice on this one. Take a day of rest--you deserve it. In the meantime, I'll sleep when I'm dead :) Click HERE if you want more information on the dangers of workaholism.
Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
Author of The Pet Washer
a novel for girls aged 9-12
The funny thing is that one of the "do you belong here" questions in Workaholics Anonymous is something like "do you love your work more than anything else you do"... I always had so much trouble understanding that one! Like, "how can that be BAD?" http://www.workaholics-anonymous.org/page.php?page=knowing
ReplyDeleteYour post made me laugh because I have been there... trying to control it myself and trying to come up with reasons that it's actually totally cool and also inevitable. I think that workaholics do this more than anybody else... it just seems so IMPOSSIBLE that we could be successful or happy any other way, right?
I have been a recovering workaholic, actually working the program in Workaholics Anonymous and everything, for... god, at least 5 years. I think that the one thing they don't get out there, that people really need to know, is that recovering from workaholism doesn't mean that you don't work, or that you do shitty work, or that you don't get things done.
It just cleared out all of the emotional baggage that made me stress out like crazy, made me work more than I had to on things because they had to be double-extra-perfect before anybody could see them for the first time, made me struggle to know when I could stop working and struggle to prioritize things because they all seemed really important, made me struggle to focus on what I was doing because there was so much ELSE I could be doing, and all the other ways that I got in my own way around work.
Working the twelve steps actually made me a million times better at what I did because there wasn't all this junk in the way. It made everything a lot easier!
Thanks for sharing, Dani! Work addiction is like food addiction--neither work nor food can be quit altogether (like alcohol or drugs). It's all about balance. I'm working on it!!
ReplyDelete