Stress for Success

Carmine Coyote of Slow Leadership gives us more food for thought in this entry about stressing for sport. Carmine writes:

Competing over stress is a badge of only one thing: being an egotistical, brain-dead jerk. If that’s what you want to prove yourself to be, step right up and get in line. It seems others are just as keen as you are to prove their stupidity.

I couldn't agree more. But what if you aren't actively engaging in competitive stress? What if you've gotten yourself backed into a stress corner? What if you want to decrease the amount of stress in your job, and get thrown a curve ball every time you try to disengage? Well, I feel your pain, because I've been there.

After my divorce five-and-a-half years ago, I was determined that my son would absolutely come first; after all, he needed me a lot more than my employer did. And for a time, I was able to do that; I modified my hours at the office (compensating by spending a bit of time in the evening working after Andrew had gone to bed), and was able to juggle my personal and professional lives with relative comfort. But after a few years, work started taking more and more of my time; it crept into every crevice of my life to the point where the only things I did were take care of my son and work (remote access is both a blessing and a curse, much like New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping). It happened so slowly that I barely noticed it.

A few months ago, I started to get the inkling that I might be working too hard. In my ignorant youth, I'd always been skeptical of the notion that many addicts might not actually enjoy the substance to which they're addicted. One day in early November, I realized that I'd become a work addict, and I didn't enjoy that addiction one bit; suddenly, I got it. Still, I carried on as I had for the past few years. I suspect that part of my drive to work comes from the fear that, as a single parent, I already have one strike against me due to my limits on time at the office. And so I worked that much harder to compensate; if I wasn't cooking, doing housework, or actively engaged with my son, I was working. On evenings. And weekends. And holidays.

Just like any other addict, I had to hit rock bottom before I was willing to make changes. My rock bottom came when first my son, and then I, got sick shortly before Christmas. The week that my son started running a fever, we had VIPs visiting our office, and I felt as though staying home would be something of a career-limiting move. Fortunately, my ex-husband's wife (or Andrew's bonus mom, as I like to call her) was willing to take care of him. Even more fortunately, it was a brief viral infection, and it passed quickly. That should have been enough to get me back on track; but it wasn't. Oh, I cried myself to sleep nearly every night that week out of guilt (my son almost never gets sick, and it broke my heart not to be there for him the one time he really needed me). But I went to work every day regardless.

It wasn't until several weeks later that the other shoe dropped: I started feeling ill about midmorning on a Monday. Once again, we had VIPs in the office, and so I felt I needed to be there. By Tuesday morning, I was fairly sure I was running a fever, and was developing a nasty cough. But I went to work anyway, thinking it was probably just a virus (and therefore wouldn't require a visit to the doctor). By Wednesday, I was really, truly too sick to function. There was no doubt that I had a fever, but I didn't know how high it was (the batteries in our thermometer were dead). I used my first sick day of the year, but only because I was sufficiently delirious from the fever that I was afraid I'd be dangerous behind the wheel of a car. Nevertheless, I was on the phone with folks from the office nearly all day, despite lengthy and painful coughing fits that left me gasping for breath.

That night, after getting new batteries for the thermometer, I found that I was running a fever of - are you ready for this? - 104 degrees. Did I finally go to the doctor? Of course not; I was still convinced that it would go away on its own, despite the high fever and increasingly frightening cough. By Thursday night, when I found myself obsessively checking my nail beds to see if they were turning blue from hypoxia, I realized that I had completely lost my mind.

On Friday, I finally saw a medical professional: I managed to avoid pneumonia, but had a nasty bronchial infection that required a course of antibiotics and some really potent cough medicine. When all was said and done, the cough lasted a total of three weeks or so. The residual effects, I hope, will be permanent.

I had vacation time scheduled for the last week of December. For the first time in far too long, I didn't check in at the office even once. No voicemail, no e-mail, no nothing. My son and I played mini-golf (I won, but only because he fell apart on the last hole), air hockey (he beat me soundly, and I'm still a bit irritated about that), and various board games. We went to movies, played with some of the new toys he got for Christmas, and generally had fun together. It was the best week I've had in a long, long time. And guess what? The business didn't go under without me, nothing happened that couldn't be handled by my colleagues, and the sun still rose in the mornings.

Since the first of the year, I have continued to put life back into my work/life balance. I'm not staying late at the office; I'm doing very few checks of e-mail before or after normal business hours. I have time in the evenings to spend with my favorite young person, and I've managed to find the time to start writing again. I'm sleeping better, my mood has improved; best of all, I'm much more productive at work, because I'm not constantly tired, irritable, frustrated, or ready to cry from overload.

I didn't share this story to garner sympathy; on the contrary, I hope that you think I was being a moron of epic proportions. No matter how much I was convinced otherwise, my job didn't stress me out - I did it to myself. And these days, when a colleague expresses surprise that I've already left the office a mere eight hours after arriving, I don't let it bug me. Because I know that when s/he's still fielding phone calls at 6:00 PM, I'll be enjoying a homecooked meal with my son; when s/he's responding to e-mail at midnight, I'll be sound asleep. And if my boss thinks that I'm less valuable because I've set perfectly reasonable boundaries (and she doesn't), then I would have to give serious consideration to finding a new line of work.

I'm lucky; it only took a bad case of bronchitis for me to see what I was doing to myself. It could just as easily have been a heart attack or a stroke. And I'll probably always struggle with the feeling that I need to do just a little more at work. But allowing myself to have a life outside of my career doesn't make me a bad employee; it makes me a better person.

If you find that work has overtaken your life and you need motivation to take back some of your own time, here's what I want you to do: close your eyes, take a deep breath, and picture yourself in the emergency room. Quick - who's there with you, crying and praying that you'll be okay? Those are the people who need to come first. And odds are that your boss won't be one of 'em.

Comments

[Joelle]

Hello. I just wanted to drop by to give you some encouraging feedback on your post.

I enjoy your writing - very clear, concise, and active - and honest. Wow. I'm absolutely impressed by your honesty, which was at times amusing.

I enjoyed the story that led to you putting yourself first. I agree that in life you /have to/ nurture yourself. So I was encouraged and inspired by your words of self-nurturance and wisdom.

Thank you for the entertaining post. I just stumbled upon this page - it was somehow in my favorites list, of all places, which I was just going through and cleaning out. My name's Joelle, and if you want to contact me, I left my email.