Hard work

We often hear statements such as: we have to work hard to come up in life, a hard day's work, hard work is the price we must pay for success, he works very hard, and so on. Have you ever heard a successful man say he came up in a non-hard way? That he took off on weekends. That he spent enough time with his family and friends. That he had time to pursue his hobbies. That he went on holiday every year. Even if this was possible, our culture would not allow us to vocalize such thoughts. That would be blasphemy and sacrilegious. You have to say that you came up the hard way. You have to say that you work very hard every day and come home very late. You have to say that you have no time for anything else other than work. You have to say that you are so overloaded with work, that you even don’t have time to breathe. You have to constantly keep saying I have no time or, where is the time? This is the kind of language that people like to hear and it has become so normal in these times. But what is the price we are paying for this kind of talk?

There is nothing wrong with working hard. But there is something seriously wrong in calling it hard work. It has long-term consequences on the quality of our lives and our health. What are we getting ourselves into when we keep using the words hard work? The first is identity. When people see you work hard they will admire you for the sacrifice you have made of your ‘life’ for the sake of work. You will feel proud when they say you are a hard worker. This will make you work even harder and make you feel even prouder. Soon your identity will be invested in hard work. You will wear the identity: I, the one who works hard, and begin to enjoy that identity that everyone admires. To maintain this identity you have to keep working harder and harder. Identities are demanding masters. They won't let you be in peace. They have to be maintained on a daily basis. They won't allow you to come home early, even if it were your child’s birthday. Hard work is not the real problem. Identities are.

The mind associates hard work with stress and fatigue. If we keep using the words hard work we will feel exhausted and stressed. Hard work is a perception. It is not a reality. Who works harder? A corporate executive in an air-conditioned office or a worker carrying heavy loads the whole day in the hot sun? Is hard work to be measured by the stress levels it induces or the amount of sweat? Is it long hours or the amount of mental work? We have to be clear as to what constitutes hard work.

What do we mean by hard? We often confuse working late with working hard. Most often what we do during normal working hours is repeated for a few hours more. That does not mean we are working hard. It only means we are working late. Working long hours can be tiring. Those who work long hours need to have frequent breaks to rejuvenate. The moment we use the word hard it creates stress. Hard work should be equated with physical labor. The kind of work that slaves were made to do to build the pyramids. Our kind of hard work is no more than tapping away on a soft keyboard or carrying a laptop. It is more mental. We must use the word hard only to describe physical objects. When used as an adjective to describe the work we do, the mind begins to believe those words and thinks that the work was hard, like a heavy weight on our heads. Work may be long but never hard. We need to be precise in the use of words. Why not say I work a few hours extra instead of I work very hard? It may not be satisfying to the ego but it will reduce stress.

Is mental work hard? In what way is it hard? When we read something and don’t understand it we say it is hard. But that is the wrong usage of words. We are confusing something that takes time to master with hard. When the mind struggles to understand and remember it doesn’t mean it is hard work. It just means it is struggling, which is not a bad thing. That is how the mind grows. The struggle to understand something new could be stressful but that is in the very nature of growing. It is a meaningful effort. Moreover, reading and understanding is not work. It is reading and understanding. We must avoid calling everything we do as work. We must practice calling it what it actually is.

We have to break down our work into its actual components. Physically we do only three things during work. We either stand, sit or move around. None of these can be classified as hard. Next, let us take up other activities. Here again, we have only five. Either we are writing, speaking, typing, reading, or thinking. In all of these activities we may not get the right words or right thoughts or quick understanding straight away. This does not mean these activities are hard. If something does not happen as soon as we want it to happen we are quick to call it hard. Again a wrong usage of the word hard. All it means is that it is not happening as fast as we want it to. It could be a bit frustrating at best because of our impatience, but not hard.

Now coming back to the identity of being a hard worker. The ego loves it. The heart doesn’t. Long hours of work never killed anybody. Artists who love their work will spend twenty hours a day and feel joyful. Work, which is seen as meaningful, is never hard. Those who do service to society will not feel the stress of hard work. Did Gandhi ever call his work hard? Do Heads of State complain about hard work? Those who work for themselves will not find work as hard as those who work for others. However the stress caused by the perception of having worked hard damages the heart. Perception, not reality, harms our health. Once we realise this we need to take steps to let go of the hard worker identity. It is not easy to drop identities. To do so you will have to acquire some other identity so that your mind does not focus on the hard worker identity. You can continue to work as long as you want but you see it as only a means to an end. It is not an end in itself. When you have an identity, hard work becomes an end in itself. You work hard, whether there is any work or not, because if you do not, your identity will rebel. The identity will create unnecessary work for you so that there is not a moment’s respite. That is the way it maintains itself as an identity. So what new identity can you create? You can call yourself a smart worker or efficient worker or creative worker instead of a hard worker. These new identities require a mindset different from that of a hard worker mindset and they are more satisfying.

Those who do voluntary work or do something for someone they look up to will not feel the stress of their work because they are doing it out of interest. Do they ever complain it was hard service? Those who work in corporations have a disadvantage. They cannot consecrate their work like you can when you do it for someone you look up to. The corporation is an abstraction. We cannot relate to it like we can to a human being. But it is possible to create a sense of belonging to the corporation by aligning ourselves to what it stands for, its core values, and its contribution to society. In this way, we humanize the corporation, by giving it the qualities of human beings. When this sense of belonging awakens and our identity with the organization becomes stronger, our work will take on a different colour. When you work for a cause or for values or for a larger good, it is less stressful. Nor will it appear to be hard.

Those who work in organisations where there is a humanitarian touch will find their work less hard. If you work from your home rather than from an office the stress will be less. Even if your house overlooks your workplace and you can see it, work will appear less hard. Those who live a street away will find work less stressful than those who live twenty miles away. Those who work for extrinsic rewards like salary will find work less fulfilling. That is why increments do not increase productivity. To feel fulfilled at work requires intrinsic interest in the work itself. Even if you are working for an organization for a salary, work for the sake of your own growth. Consider the job as a gift for you to grow. The job will then have intrinsic worth and not derive its worth from the salary you get. Both will then benefit, the organization as well as you. If you work for a boss you like or with a team you enjoy being with, work will not appear burdensome. If you make your work meaningful then the meaning that you derive from the work will drive out stress. If the ambience in the workplace is healthy with little or no office politics you will not mind any work. If you have one good friend then the very thought of being with that friend will reduce stress at work. When the recognition you get from the work is substantial then work will seem appealing. When we experience ‘flow’ in work, then we will feel like working long hours. Where there is learning and growth in the work it will be engaged with zeal. If the work is intellectually challenging and you like intellectual challenges then working long hours will not be a problem. Whether the work is emotionally appealing or aesthetic or people oriented or outdoors will make a difference to your relationship with it. Work by itself is therefore not the real issue. We don’t have to make it the scapegoat for all our stress. We have to do what it takes to have a healthy relationship with our work, the workplace, and our colleagues.

Language creates an artificial reality. Unless we become deeply aware of this we will live under the illusion that language is only a means of communication. It is much more than that. Nouns are generally harmless but adjectives are not. The word house is neutral. But the word ugly house can create emotions and prejudices. Adjectives color the way we perceive reality. So also there are certain concepts that can cause stress. One such concept is work. It is a term used to describe certain kinds of actions. We club a large number of specific activities and call it work. It is time we drop this word from our vocabulary due to its association with hard. Then what do we do? We use language that describes what we are actually doing. If you are keying in a memo that is not work. That is keying in a memo. If you are writing a report or speaking at a meeting or making a presentation or brainstorming you use those precise words to describe what you do and don’t call it work. We can tell ourselves that I made a presentation, I wrote a report. At the end of the day you remember all the activities you did and not generalize it and say it was a hard day's work. It was a day you spoke, wrote, or thought about some specific subjects. If you have plenty of work to do be precise as to the nature of work instead of saying heavy workload. When we use words like heavy then work will appear to be heavy. Beware of the adjectives used to describe work.

The strange thing about work is that what you do during office hours is work, but if you do the same thing during leisure hours it is not work. When you brainstorm during a business session it is work. But when you brainstorm with the family it is not work. We spend hours emailing friends without any stress. But when we email at work it is stressful. It is not the activity that is stressful but the context from where we perceive it. If we language what we do precisely, with the right choice of words to describe the activity, this perception can be corrected.

For most people daily work is routine. Only at higher levels where crucial decisions have to be made it will be stressful since we are unsure whether the decision was the right one. Decision making causes stress, not hard work. But crucial decisions are not made throughout the day. The rest of the time is routine with which we are at ease. If even routine work is perceived as hard then there is something seriously wrong with our perception. Routine work can be boring and tiring at times, but never hard since you know exactly what to do. It is important to break the routine at work by engaging with colleagues and talking about topics that relax us. Talking to people is a great de-stressor. But if there is too much work and very little time then there will be stress. Here again, it is unwise to call it hard work. Here stress is caused not by the work, but by the scarcity of time. Frequent breakout time is required to reduce stress due to shortage of time. We have to make a habit of relaxing and decontracting for brief moments during the course of work. Initially, there will be inner resistance as the self-talk will be that there is no time for such things, that as it is there is not enough time, now this will only increase the shortage. We must not believe such self-talk. Those few moments of letting go, which can be done even when you are at your desk, will de-stress and improve productivity.

We must avoid using the words hard work because it can raise our stress levels sky-high. If we can reduce our stress by avoiding these two words, why not? It costs us nothing. Why be attached to these two words just because our ego likes it? In today’s globally competitive work culture, long hours and plenty of work are here to stay. It is the only way we can outbid the competition from the world over. An alternative to the competitive culture is nowhere in sight. We have to find alternative and more innovative ways of coping with this new phenomenon. One way is to change our perception of hard work.