Vivi per lavorare o lavori per vivere? Andrew Taggart sintetizza perfettamente perché il lavoro come misura di tutte le cose è un concetto dannoso, per non dire altro. Io non sono il mio lavoro. Posso amarlo, ma la mia vita e la mia identità comprende molto altro.
C’è stato un periodo della mia vita in cui io ero il mio lavoro. Da tempo non è più così e non ho assolutamente alcuna intenzione di tornare indietro. Se la prima domanda che mi fa uno sconosciuto, appena incontrato in un contesto sociale, è “che lavoro fai?“, questo non parte per niente bene.
And how, in this world of total work, would people think and sound and act? Everywhere they looked, they would see the pre-employed, employed, post-employed, underemployed and unemployed, and there would be no one uncounted in this census. Everywhere they would laud and love work, wishing each other the very best for a productive day, opening their eyes to tasks and closing them only to sleep. Everywhere an ethos of hard work would be championed as the means by which success is to be achieved, laziness being deemed the gravest sin. Everywhere among content-providers, knowledge-brokers, collaboration architects and heads of new divisions would be heard ceaseless chatter about workflows and deltas, about plans and benchmarks, about scaling up, monetisation and growth.
Per questo la parola produttività è quasi bandita dalla mia vita. Quando la sento, mi viene ormai quasi una reazione allergica:
Together, thoughts of the not yet but supposed to be done, the should have been done already, the could be something more productive I should be doing, and the ever-awaiting next thing to do conspire as enemies to harass the agent who is, by default, always behind in the incomplete now. Secondly, one feels guilt whenever he is not as productive as possible. Guilt, in this case, is an expression of a failure to keep up or keep on top of things, with tasks overflowing because of presumed neglect or relative idleness.
If work dominated your every moment would life be worth living?