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Are You a Workaholic?

For many of us, the pandemic set our worst money-fears into motion.
We suddenly lost work, in all forms and shapes, and with it, our sense of financial security.
For those of us who identify as workaholics, this was a huge trigger to want to work even more.
The fear of not meeting the bills, and the guilt of ‘resting’ — if you could call anxiety-fuelled fidgeting a kind of rest… Personally, it all drove me a bit mad.
But since the world came back on line, I found new work and absolutely drowned myself in it. I must be honest and say this hasn’t been good for my health, and my levels of burnout have been rising like dirty flood water — opaque and all-consuming.
In the post-traumatic state of recovering from a global recession, I want us all to think carefully about why risking burning ourselves out is more dangerous now than ever.
Why we do it
Being a workaholic is often perceived as a virtue. Many individuals wear their workaholism as a badge of honour, equating it with dedication and success.
We do it to ourselves out of guilt — and often with a heavy side-order of childhood conditioning.