How to Work Less, Enjoy More, and Still Do What Needs to Be Done 

When I was four-years old I made a vow that nearly ruined my life. I was sitting in the corner of the kitchen while my mother talked with three women friends complain about their husbands. “My husband just can’t seem to make a living as a writer,” my mother told her friends, “but he won’t let me work. He tells me ‘It’s a man’s job to bring home the bacon.’ Another woman told the group, “My husband works, but he hates his job and takes it out on the rest of the family.” The third woman chimed in, “My husband spends the day drinking. I wouldn’t mind so much, but he just gets in my way. It’s like having another child in the house. Men are useless.”

As a child what I heard was a mixture of pity, contempt, and disrespect. In my child mind I made a vow that I would never let women talk about me like that. I would die first. That vow almost killed me. I studied hard, went to college, got a master’s degree, and became a successful therapist. I made good money and I was able to “bring home the bacon” and support my family.

I worked my butt off for most of my life, accepting the stress, and the accompanying physical effects—for me, asthma, ongoing depression, and fear of failure. I’ve found that many people have early experiences learned from family or society that drives us to overwork.

I loved what I did and it felt good to help people, but I was driven more by the fear of failure than the joy of success. Once we get on the path of work, work, work, its difficult to get off. Even when we’d like to cut back, relax more, do other things, we are got up in the need to keep on going—work harder, put in more hours, help more people.

We vow that next year we’ll cut back. As soon as….there’s always something in the future we must do—as soon as I get the kids through college…as soon as we pay off the car…as soon as I things slow down at work.

I realized I had come to see my work-life as a race. I can’t slow down. I have to keep pushing, keep running, keep on keeping on. But I also longed to relax more, to have more time to read, to go on long walks with my wife, to spend more time with my kids and grandkids. But I felt the world needed me. There were so many people in need. How could I cut back? How could I say no?

It’s nice to create, to feel needed, but many of us have grown to feel we are indispensable. It just isn’t so. Let’s face it, there are a lot of problems in the world and in many ways things are getting worse. We all feel the stresses all around us and those of us who can make a difference in the world feel called upon to do more.

But here’s the thing I’m learning. One of the greatest gifts we can give to the world, is the gift of gentle relaxation, to do our work with joy and ease–Taking time to smell the roses, having unexpected encounters with strangers, talking to our grandkids on the phone without feeling rushed. We’ll never get everything done, not in a day, a week, or a life-time, so we might as well get done what we can and have a life that is joyful and easy.

For most of my life, I felt joyful and easy were swear words, synonymous with self-centered and lazy.

It was a revelation to me when I realized that life didn’t need to be a life or death race for survival. And if I had been in a race, I had crossed the finish line. My children were grown. My wife could take care of herself. I wasn’t the only one in the world who was helping to make things better.

What does one do when they realize they have crossed the finish line? Well, the first thing I did was to slow down. I took time to celebrate the journey. I tuned into what I really wanted to do at this time of life.

As a therapist, I could fill my calendar with clients. I could work 30, 40, 50, or more hours a week. I have a number of colleagues who do just that. Instead, I’ve chosen to work 8-10 hours a week seeing clients. That’s enough for me and I either refer clients to other people or let people wait until I have an opening. I spend time writing articles which I love and books that I can work on at my own pace.

I walk a lot, do Zumba twice a week, go to the gym, read books, sit in my garden, and feel the joy of being alive. I can still get caught up in the hub bub of “more, bigger, better,” but thankfully, my wife, Carlin, enjoys the simpler life we have created for ourselves.

We love living in Willits and walking keeps me living at a slower pace. I have a friend who spent time in Africa. On one of his outings he saw a line of men in the distance walking slowly across the landscape. Periodically they would stop, then start up walking again. He asked his guide why the men stopped periodically and he was told, “so their souls can catch up with them.”

Too many of us are living at a pace where we our leaving our souls behind. Rather than running faster, we may be called upon to slow down even more, perhaps even stop all together.

My wife, Carlin, recently had heart-valve replacement surgery. As part of her recovery she’s had to slow way, way down. Even small movements can be painful and her usual activities of water aerobics and a full schedule of seeing clients, housework, shopping, organizing, etc. have to be put on hold. Since I’m not as adept at these jobs as she is, I’ve had to do them very slowly in order to be sure I’m doing them right.

I’m reminded of the last three lines of Mary Oliver’s well-known poem, “The Summer Day.”

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

When I feel myself speeding up, I stop and re-read these lines. They remind me that I can work less, enjoy more, and still do what needs to be done. Overwork can kill you and slowing down has helped me get more done with less stress. Not a bad tradeoff.

This one’s for you, Stephen, and for anyone else who is ready to stop and wait for their soul to catch up.

Your comments, as always, are a great gift to me.