Initially, this was going to be a complex post about responsibility and change, because they are current hot topics and because many of the people I talk with and clients have expressed various thoughts about change, inclusivity, diversity, and responsibility over the last while. It was a hot topic of 2020 and it promises to be the hot topic of 2021.
And my recovering workaholic self (the person who worked up to 20 hours or more per day at the start of this consultancy, and who was unfortunately used to doing that and worse for other things) was actually going to write a post on that theme, and possibly keep writing throughout what promises to be a very short holiday anyway. (To my long-suffering OH – I’m sorry, and I promise that I’m trying to be better.)
But then, amidst reading something on self-care and burnout that I thought might be useful, I suddenly paused, and a thought struck me.
Should we, in fact, keep up stressful, strenuous, difficult, serious debates during holidays and over what is socially considered to be free time?
Responsibility and change do not happen overnight. Neither do bad things, such as life conditions, social inequities and co. go on holiday over any period of social rest in any society. They are constant, persistent, present, sometimes painfully or even more so during social holidays, because holidays aren’t merely personal. A birthday is a personal holiday, one that is supposed to be a celebration of self in one’s environment, and while we do not get an automatic day off for our own and our loved ones’ personal days, we are entitled to actively seek a day off, or celebrate in the ways best suited to our needs and desires. The same is true of personal anniversaries.
These holidays are only bitter when the personal situation is bitter (eg, anniversaries and a bad relationship/marriage, birthday and painful memories), whereas social holidays, holidays that are shared by and recognised widely by society/culture (and often religion(s) ) around us, bear with them the active attached stigmas, prejudices and difficulties that are present every day, but become more obvious when exclusion from events, happiness and social identity are that much more marked. Where exclusion may otherwise be passive, social holidays tend to deepen the Us vs Them divide, and that means that this exclusion becomes active. Everyone is supposed to be happy… but “everyone” doesn’t represent the Other. Otherness is pointed out and made more important, making it clear that the Other has no business enjoying the holidays, regardless of why they are Othered. A person can share the ethnicity, the social background, the race… and still be considered Other because of an identity trait (eg sexual orientation or disability), or an association therewith (parents/siblings of LGBT+ children or children with disabilities). And there are always traits that act as an exclusionary sieve if one wants to find them. Excluding is easy.
At the same time, those with depression, those who have suffered loss or who are living in difficult social conditions (poverty, chronic illness with resulting medical bills, etc), may find it difficult to express the desired level of enthusiasm that is expected from social holidays attendees. That, too, can Other, and it’s important for all these conditions to be remembered, if for no other reason than for this one, which can lead to increased emotional pressure, interpersonal violence and arguably suicide related to the first two – a clear sign that much can be fixed, and that often, we do not have time enough to fix things quickly enough for everyone.
The topics I have touched here are pretty serious, and they are not new. They are a part of both our societies and our fight to make things better. But, to repeat myself, they are pretty serious. How much seriousness can we take without breaks?
Resting is an important part of living and thriving. And resting requires more than just putting your feet up and not looking at work. It also requires being physically active (as much as possible); it requires catching up on sleep. Above all, it requires rest from stressful topics.
It’s become a thing to “cleanse” by not looking at social media. This is applicable to those who a) have friends who post, repost and share stressful topics, b) who tend to find work-related or stressful topics through searching for it in an obsessive-compulsive way, or who border on that (if you find yourself looking restlessly for information when you should be looking at Nat Geo pictures of nature on IG, that might be you), c) who do not separate the fun, sociable activities on social media from work and/or stress, d) those who can relate to two or all three of the above points.
Similarly, victims of sexual violence have been tentatively advised, on and off, to take a break from news when the #MeToo movement filled it. I have recently seen this sentiment echoed during the pandemic, in an effort to stop people from stressing themselves out even further.
In short, much like there is a reason for certain types of spoilers (i.e. warnings) to be given about movies, series, episodes, books and fanfiction (where this has likely started), we are starting to be aware that we are not only risking serious burnout with constantly tapping into information, but also trauma, be it as a consequence of a possibly personally applicable threat (i.e. violence against a specific group, eg. Black and African-American community, LGBT, women…) or a triggering of a past trauma that is brought back through repeat exposure to a threat that could be, has been or is similar to a threat we have experienced.
The more stressful our daily lives, the more we need to switch off and take our time to do something else, something nice that we enjoy doing, with those we love and trust.
In business, busyness is practically a cult. From the stereotypical businessman (tough guy who misses all personal occasions and fails to show up for Christmas holidays) to aspirers towards any form of business success, we are all told to keep being present. Keep posting. Keep doing.
In other words, the social and personal occasions do not apply to us.
According to surveys, 83 % of people in all kinds of work suffer from a form of stress (link); 60 to 77 % definitely experience burnout (link), which influences their lives as well as, ultimately, their success. Incidentally, they also influence others that work with them, because lack of attention due to tiredness and saturation with information, irritability, anxiety, depression etc that come with the many types of exhaustion have the capacity to hurt the productivity and mental health of others through them being exposed to them. A manager’s irritability or bad mood can hurt a significant amount of people. Inattentiveness of an employee can cause mistakes that can bear long-term consequences for the business in question.
Above all, we are relearning, constantly, that we are never successful enough to stop having to prove to people that we are. We are never good enough, no matter how much meaning we bring to lives. We can never provide enough content.
In short… we are never ever truly good enough, and when we talk about positive changes that should involve being more serious about mental health, overwork and burnout, those changes most certainly do not involve us. (I hope it goes without saying that this is not good for us… think depression, anxiety and impostor syndrome.)
Is this inevitable?
No… but it does stand in the way of change.
Wherever you live, social holidays mean a time off from the usual grind. Most businesses shut down or work on a considerably lower scale; most people take time off reading much and replace it by being with their loved ones.
And absolutely no one likes coming back to a huge stack of things that they now have to work through. It’s enough that the after holiday period is filled with often slightly higher workload (eg. everything that didn’t manage to happen right before, that now has to happen as soon as possible); huge hulking reading lists of everything you missed can be depressing and daunting.
The chances, therefore, are that people will not be reading as attentively as we would like anyway.
The only remaining reason for continuous work, then, is to either show up others or to keep advertising one’s presence.
But for what results, and at what costs?
Even if it takes you half an hour to write a post or an article, this is half an hour you did not spend with your loved ones. When you consider the amount of time you don’t spend with them during an average working week, the numbers become scary. Consider only that, if you have an hour long commute, and you work 9-5, that means minimally ten hours away from those you love who are closest to you – usually your OH, and pets and children if you have them. Ten hours. You are supposed to sleep at least eight per night to remain healthy. That leaves six hours. During those six hours – which will be dispersed throughout the day and the waking part of the night -, you may be busy with other things. There are activities that you or them will be undertaking alone, or that will require more of your or their attention than being around each other in a meaningful way really requires. You may further reduce these activities, the together time, if there are more things that you need to do out of the house alone. Shopping trips, any kind of additional classes, meeting with friends, gym time (unless or even if you are going together), homework, extra work that just has to be done, cooking, vet or doctor visits, chatting online/on the phone/via any form of video with a third party you don’t see often otherwise, also take time. And often, we go through a day without really spending time around each other at all.
And a day can easily become weeks, months, even years, because what we do becomes a routine, and routines feel unbreakable and functional (even when they aren’t).
There is a reason that people often do not really know each other even after years of living together. A large part of it is in the highly limited time we take to truly be around each other.
Should we, then, keep up actively posting and engaging in serious conversations, when we are only cutting into our own and other people’s free time? Should we keep up conversations that are difficult and serious because they make us look serious and competent, but may come at a time when we are in fact even more sensitive than otherwise?
My answer to this, when I really got to thinking about it, was definitely no.
And if you are still not convinced, consider this.
Social holidays are also a part of identity.
By this, I do not mean to exclude any social holidays and any culture. Where cultures are mixed, it is that much more important to remember that social holidays may come at different times, and that people should have an option to celebrate them. But this doesn’t change the meaningfulness of social holidays. When we celebrate social holidays, we celebrate our existence within a specific social, cultural and often religious space, and our own and others’ recognition of that space, and its validity. And as social identity plays an important part in our more personal identity – the shall we say deeper us within this space -, not being allowed to celebrate it is detrimental to us as a person.
Pushing this away isn’t a good move; not because it makes us look bad in front of anyone looking for people to Other (not only because that’s not right and they shouldn’t be doing that, but also because a person like that can always find some kind of reason to Other us anyway), but because we begin to distance from others around us in the space we consider important as well as from the deepest, most personal relationships in our lives.
Holidays are times we catch up with people whom we do not even have a chance to see every day. Time together is very fleeting. Losing even half an hour to an hour is actually quite a lot when you don’t see each other and spend any bonding time together during an entire year or perhaps even longer.
What about diversity?
How does the feeling that we have to be constantly show up and show skill apply there?
Apart from making an impostor syndrome that is often already present far worse, people may be more affected due to who they are. Women, for instance, who have shown us very clearly that their burdens are disproportionate for most part compared to their male counterparts during the pandemic, may either feel even more burdened (because preparations for festivities often depend on them), or compelled to show up even more than the men, feeling that they have to always do more, which will cut even further into their personal time and their time with their loved ones. Those (male, female or however they identify) coming from any cultural groups that are keen on familial gatherings may be utterly disconnected from those gatherings, losing what support network they are used to having. Stressful topics will mean more stress on top of what can be overwhelming amount of interpersonal contact and preparations regardless of gender and cultural group.
The answer, therefore, is simple.
We – me included – need to practice what we preach. Weekends and holidays, or whatever counts as important to you socially and personally, should be a valid point of rest. If, by all means, you must post something or you will simply explode, try to post something positive. Try to make people laugh. This is something we tend not to do, because we are conditioned to believe that business and work in general are serious, solemn occasions. But making people feel at ease or happy is far from making mockery of things. It’s about showing our humanity and allowing others to show theirs as freely. It is about lightening the mood and setting a welcoming, creative atmosphere.
If we are setting to bury the bad sides of business practices, maybe we should start with this. Learning that taking time off isn’t something horrible is one thing; applying it is another. By learning when not to write, we can perhaps start to step towards that goal… for ourselves and others.