Less Work, More Play

American (and other) cultures worship at the altar of hard work and achievement, but we often neglect our need for play.

What I read: “The achievement society is burning us out, we need more play” by Alec Stubbs. Published on April 1, 2024.

I just returned from a three-week vacation in Europe. I worked a little bit while there, but mostly used it as an opportunity to recharge. Prior to this past trip, I hadn’t taken an extended vacation like that in well over a decade. It was needed.

While I read Alec Stubbs’ article, I kept nodding my head in silent agreement. After leaving my longstanding corporate job in late 2022, moving into what many refer to as retirement even though I feel anything but retired, it only then dawned on me how much I had worked throughout my life with relatively few breaks of any significance.

That was a mistake. Luckily, at age 70 I’m still healthy enough to do many of the things I wanted to do in my 40s, 50s, and 60s, but that’s admittedly been a crapshoot. It was a crapshoot decision I weighed thoughtfully, but a crapshoot nonetheless that could have easily been thwarted by the chance and randomness that are an inherent part of life.

All that said, in retrospect, I was more obsessed with work and productivity than I should have been most of my life. I readily accepted the American and hyper capitalist perspective that hard, dedicated work of any kind is a pathway to success and happiness. I was partly wrong.

We are obsessed with work. It shapes our identities, gives our lives structure, and guides us towards our purpose in life. As Americans, work is who we are. We believe that our achievements and productivity not only define us but also pave the way for success and happiness.

Ever hear the term overachiever? That was me, or at least how I self-defined most of my life despite whether it was always true in fact in the moment. School. Sports. Career. Whatever it was, I believed the highest levels of achievement were a guarantee that my life would be happy and fulfilled.

I mentioned that I was only partly wrong about that mindset. Truthfully, much of it has served me well. Whether it’s dutifully saving for retirement, seeing the fruit of my labor as a community project culminates, or something I’ve written being lauded, the hard work in those instances paid off.

That said, I overcompensated in many ways and rarely allowed myself the downtime, recreation, and play that I should have embraced as an integral part of a healthy and well-balanced life.

I hope others reading this learn from my mistakes. Sure, work hard, but keep it all balanced. Sure, strive for success in whatever endeavor you pursue, but don’t fall prey to the hamster wheel of constantly escalating goals that only spark temporary dopamine hits in our brain and quickly fade.

In the achievement society, we suffer from an internalised pressure to achieve – to do more, to be more, to have more. Whether we are aware of it or not, we have internalised the capitalist work ethic to the degree that our successes and failures weigh heavily on our individual shoulders.

At various times I didn’t easily identify it as such, but I can reflect on my decades of work and clearly notice periods of my life when I was at burnout phase. That is not good. Again, I hope my readers consciously dissect their own work and achievement-driven lives to make sure they see the signs of burnout before they crash their physical or mental health.

Amid all the work and striving I’ve done was a constant return to self-improvement materials, only some of them in hindsight having been significantly helpful. I turned myself not into “Race the person” but rather “Race the project.”

And so, for Han, in the contemporary world, the self is no longer a subject but a project. The self is something to be optimised, to be maximised, to be made efficient, cultivated for its capacity for productive output. The worry is that all life activities become viewed as lines on a résumé.

Han alludes to something very important though about the rabid productivity mindset we’re encouraged to embrace. It’s a sham, at least in our contemporary capitalist American society.

Productivity has grown at 3.5 times the rate of pay since the 1970s. Articles and reports abound about how American pay rates aren’t keeping up with the cost of living. But the harder and longer work hours we put in aren’t being returned with commensurate compensation.

Add into all that the abundance of layoffs and downsizing taking place in the American workforce, now with generative AI and other technologies potentially chipping away further at job security, and the never-ending hard work can add even more to burnout, emotional exhaustion, and a pervasive feeling that it’s all fruitless.

Han also alludes to how all this striving and productivity focus can delay our arriving at a meaningful life. Sorry to tell you this, but if you think the meaning of life is sitting at a desk coding software for eight hours a day or juggling numbers in a spreadsheet for your boss’ upcoming presentation, you’re wrong. If your efforts contribute to some greater social good, then perhaps you can imbue meaning into such things, but most jobs don’t ultimately make life better for everyone. In fact, many jobs (most?) just keep the consumer hungry to buy and upper-level capitalists getting increasingly richer.

We don’t find meaning. We create meaning. I can’t emphasize that enough. You create meaning in your life. It’s not something you can find externally or have it imposed on you by social messaging or structures.

Finally, and to get to the crux of Han’s article, most of us need to play more than we do. I sure don’t play enough. Or at least I didn’t. These days I’m trying to do that more. Thus, the recent three-week vacation in Europe during which I did almost nothing “useful” but instead simply allowed the day to unfold as it did in each city I visited. I played.

Han cites German philosopher Moritz Schlick about play. Schlick suggests that the hyper productivity industrial age mindset has become a gospel of our times to the point it’s idolized. Schlick believes the true meaning of life can only be found in those things that exist for their own sake. True, “purposeless” activities are where the core of life’s meaning resides. Hanging out with friends. Reading a good book for pleasure. Writing a poem just because you want to write a poem. Drawing a picture even though you’re a crap artist. Going for a walk through the woods. These are the things that bring forth meaning.

This post is getting long so I’ll conclude with an important point Han mentions about Schlick’s perspective. Work can become play. If the work we do “can take on the creative and self-sufficient character of play,” then the distinction between work and play collapses.

I agree totally but scroll though most job listings and I defy you to find many of them for which true creativity and self-sufficiency jump out as characteristics of the job. Self-employment might help bolster both creativity and self-sufficiency, but even then, the self-employed are often beholden to their clients and customers in such a way that it squelches the joy out of the endeavor.

Han makes many other excellent points, and I recommend you read his article in full. Then perhaps take a break from work and go play.

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