We are all working against deadlines, aren’t we? That is the bane of modern life. An admirer of modern technology though I am, I feel that technological innovations and inventions, especially in the communication field, haven’t made our life any easier than we thought they would. Those of us employed in private companies are invariably working more than 10 hours every day. Not only are we burdened with work overload, but we are also asked to complete the works before the deadlines given to us.
Personally I feel that the very word `deadline’ itself triggers stress reaction. It is intimidatory, more so because it has its origin from military campaign. Let us see what Webster’s Dictionary says: Deadline is a “line drawn around a prison, to cross which involves for a prisoner the liability of being instantly shot. Hence, a fixed limit, beyond which disaster is imminent.” (My heart is pounding when I read those words). David Poson in his The Little Book of Stress Relief suggests moderate terms such as `time frame’, `time limit’ or `target date’ to replace the scary word `deadline’. (This book is a must read for all people, especially those who are experiencing stress-related problems).
The greatest casualty of the contemporary work culture that is being promoted in the globalised world is the work-life balance. You cannot manage to have leisure even when you are enjoying your day off because you are not supposed to switch off the mobile phone your company has given you, your laptop tempts you to check your mailbox every now and then, and more importantly, you think about your work when you are not supposed to do so. Leisure has become a dirty word today. `Work, work and do more work’ is the latest work culture concept in private companies. Technology, I believe, has deprived us of our right to leisure and laziness. Technology, in the first place, is expected to diminish the quantity of work we do to earn our livelihood.
Bertrand Russell believed so and he was an advocate of four-hour-work-a-day concept that will ensure `happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia’, he wrote in his 1932 essay `In Praise of Idleness’, which you can read in his book with the same title. Blasting the modern tendency to believe in the `virtuousness’ of work, Russell says that `the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organised diminution of work.’
Russell’s words cannot be more relevant today when survival in an ambience of cut-throat competition is seen to be more important than happiness. Till a few years ago, I thought that my good performance in my work was the source of my happiness. So I worked hard even during holidays. Quality time I used to spend with my family was diminishing without my knowledge. One day, I was completely overwhelmed by a sense of alarm as though something terrible was going to happen to me. I was sweating and I felt butterflies in my stomach. It took a few days before I realised that I was facing stress-related anxiety disorders. My life on the fast lane was starting to tell upon my mental and physical health. I struggled with this problem for nearly one year until I decided to change my lifestyle by making a self-assessment of my potential and expectations. I still occasionally experience spells of anxiety problems, but they are under control.
Stress reaction can be given an evolutionary explanation. Every living creature experiences situations that required `fight or flight’ reaction. Stress reaction is just that. The problem with human beings today is that we often experience imaginary situations that continue to keep our adrenaline, cortisol and other stress hormones rising.
If you have not already started experiencing stress-related problems, your bucket of stress has some more space to be full. But don’t wait till it is full. Identify people (yes, relationship can be a stressor of the worst kind) and things and beliefs that are obstacles to your inner sense of happiness. Say `No’ when you want to say `No’ and don’t be a pleaser. Take it as an advice from a person who used to be a pleaser till he found that pleasing people is not his job.
Personally I feel that the very word `deadline’ itself triggers stress reaction. It is intimidatory, more so because it has its origin from military campaign. Let us see what Webster’s Dictionary says: Deadline is a “line drawn around a prison, to cross which involves for a prisoner the liability of being instantly shot. Hence, a fixed limit, beyond which disaster is imminent.” (My heart is pounding when I read those words). David Poson in his The Little Book of Stress Relief suggests moderate terms such as `time frame’, `time limit’ or `target date’ to replace the scary word `deadline’. (This book is a must read for all people, especially those who are experiencing stress-related problems).
The greatest casualty of the contemporary work culture that is being promoted in the globalised world is the work-life balance. You cannot manage to have leisure even when you are enjoying your day off because you are not supposed to switch off the mobile phone your company has given you, your laptop tempts you to check your mailbox every now and then, and more importantly, you think about your work when you are not supposed to do so. Leisure has become a dirty word today. `Work, work and do more work’ is the latest work culture concept in private companies. Technology, I believe, has deprived us of our right to leisure and laziness. Technology, in the first place, is expected to diminish the quantity of work we do to earn our livelihood.
Bertrand Russell believed so and he was an advocate of four-hour-work-a-day concept that will ensure `happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia’, he wrote in his 1932 essay `In Praise of Idleness’, which you can read in his book with the same title. Blasting the modern tendency to believe in the `virtuousness’ of work, Russell says that `the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organised diminution of work.’
Russell’s words cannot be more relevant today when survival in an ambience of cut-throat competition is seen to be more important than happiness. Till a few years ago, I thought that my good performance in my work was the source of my happiness. So I worked hard even during holidays. Quality time I used to spend with my family was diminishing without my knowledge. One day, I was completely overwhelmed by a sense of alarm as though something terrible was going to happen to me. I was sweating and I felt butterflies in my stomach. It took a few days before I realised that I was facing stress-related anxiety disorders. My life on the fast lane was starting to tell upon my mental and physical health. I struggled with this problem for nearly one year until I decided to change my lifestyle by making a self-assessment of my potential and expectations. I still occasionally experience spells of anxiety problems, but they are under control.
Stress reaction can be given an evolutionary explanation. Every living creature experiences situations that required `fight or flight’ reaction. Stress reaction is just that. The problem with human beings today is that we often experience imaginary situations that continue to keep our adrenaline, cortisol and other stress hormones rising.
If you have not already started experiencing stress-related problems, your bucket of stress has some more space to be full. But don’t wait till it is full. Identify people (yes, relationship can be a stressor of the worst kind) and things and beliefs that are obstacles to your inner sense of happiness. Say `No’ when you want to say `No’ and don’t be a pleaser. Take it as an advice from a person who used to be a pleaser till he found that pleasing people is not his job.
(By the way, how's the photo? I took this photo using my Nikon F801 during my visit to Holzbronn, small resort, in Germany in 2002. Isn't that small patch of wooded area in a public garden with a beautiful house in the background something that touches your inner sense of calm?)
2 comments:
Are you sure you did not photograph my sister's house in Germany? Well, she too lives in a beutiful house, but in Dusseldorf.
But do not be too excited by a German house. There is no much liberty there, our country with all its idisyncracy is far better than their mechanised lives.
Sorrow and depression are part and parcel of all hardworking people. Even I have dead lines. Just now I completed a portrait of a MARIA. She is a Kottayam Nazrani - but of the bygone era - with her ears pierced at the top to hand a thick earring rather horizontally.
Did you know of a practise among the Africans, where the woman's clitoris is 'circumised'? The woman then has to live with pain all her life - while menstruating, while copulating, while birthing and even while urinating!
This is done to keep women away from the joy of sex, so that they do not ever enjoy this beutiful act of life and does not ever stray from her captor. What ingenious methods men find for curtailing women's freedom!
This practice is very common among Muslims in African countries and even in Saudi Arabia. Ayan Hirsi Ali, the author of Infidel, gives you a graphic description of female circumcision. It is as cruel as cruel can be. She herself is a victim of this brutal practice. Thank goodness, we are not living in such barbaric countries where Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not apply and civilised nations just pretend not to see these brutalities in the name of either strategy of cultural relativism. Women in these barbaric lands are private posessions and sex is seen as a male territory. I will defend the U.S. or any other country if it can invade those lands and free their women. But no country is known to have gone for war to liberate women.
Post a Comment