We need to talk about how Americans are working their lives away. It’s hard to place when this happened, but at some point, we shifted to be almost entirely work-centered society.
Working-class Americans are stuck in a rut.
There’s this cycle that we go through. This monotonous routine to life is found throughout most of the country. You work Monday to Friday, catch a two-day break on the weekend, and then, it’s back to work on Monday — and the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats. Until when exactly will we be doing this?
The average American is predicted to retire in their early to mid-60s. Does this mean that, until then, we’re all just supposed to work two-thirds of our year away, every year for 40 years? It’s worth questioning. Why do we spend so much of our lifetime working?
Consider how much life we’re missing out on. In the grand scheme of things, the break that we get on weekends or occasional national holidays are mere glimpses of what we should be experiencing regularly.
Not only that, but taking time off of work is almost frowned upon. It’s been ingrained in us to prioritize productivity over our wellbeing. People would rather face a hit to their health, physical or mental, than risk potentially offloading more onto their team or face retaliation from managers in the form of reduced hours and pay.
Why should people feel anxious about calling in sick for the day? Why should new parents feel concerned about their job security after starting a family? Why do we operate as though life gets in the way of work, rather than simply being a part of it? Why is it that people with so much life ahead of them so often revert to dreaming about what they’ll do when they retire? Why has our society allowed this to happen? Why does it feel like we’re not simply working to live, but living to work?
