Work Is An Important Value, But So Is Self-care
It is time you stop inflicting harm on yourself by suppressing your emotions
He was not worthy of the blame.
During all of his childhood, he had seen his father come home late from work, often. Sometimes, even after midnight.
His father was a sincere bank employee and if he had to climb the ladder of hierarchy, spending overtime at work was to be accepted as a norm.
Likewise, he never saw his mother complain.
She used to spend hours together, waiting for that one call from her husband, informing her that he will be late tonight or that he is caught up in work, but such calls were seldom too. There were no mobile phones at the time, which would have made it convenient for a busy, working man to inform his wife of his whereabouts.
She wouldn’t sleep or eat until he came home.
Work is worship — is a popular motto that many Indians, follow even today minus the Gen Z, I think 🤔.
Work is what feeds mouths. In a country where unemployment has been a chronic developmental issue for decades, a middle-class person with a family to feed, wouldn’t want to risk a good, well-paying, white-collar job, simply for the sake of the “family”.
For many years, he and his mother lived alone, as his father had to migrate to nearby towns or cities, with every promotion he took.
Today, he is a grown-up himself.
He has a family to feed and a house to pay rent for.
He really hates the workplace he is currently in, but resigning until he finds another job is clearly, off the table. Perhaps, that would be too adventurous or ambitious.
“I know my fate. I won’t get anything better until I suffer”, he spoke one evening, as he felt helpless and lost.
He has been feeling this way for a long time now. Every morning, he would wake up and sigh in hopelessness.
“I don’t feel like going to work”, he would say on his way out of the house.
“Just a few more days, sweetheart”, his wife would comfort him and bid him a good day ahead with a kiss.
He appeared for job interviews, week after week, and yet, in over six months, he had not received a positive from any company. He was starting to doubt himself, unaware of where he is lacking and what possibly is going wrong. He is a highly educated, well-qualified candidate with decent work experience and a dedicated attitude towards work that every company would want.
Day by day, he was becoming more and more miserable. He was losing confidence. Each day, he used to come up with one excuse or another to comfort himself against the situation he found himself him.
The only reason to keep working at that place was the salary that paid all the bills at the end of the month.
Every evening, he would come home mentally exhausted from all the work of the day, with no energy or motivation to do anything else. He does not remember the last time he exercised or enjoyed some music. No new web series, only the same old sitcom he had been watching since his college days, on repeat.
Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
That workplace had sucked the life out of him. It was clearly, toxic but he could not afford the liberty to just leave.
He was the “man” in the house. He had his entire future ahead of him. A new car to buy, a better house of his own to move into. Care for his aging parents and certainly plan for children.
He had a nice group of friends, who often went out for small excursions and would post stories of concerts, beach visits, and beer parties on their Instagram. Parties did not excite him anymore. He never envied them or got jealous of his peers’ “happening” life but always wondered, how it was easy for everyone else he knows, to become well settled and live an ideal life!
Work or a successful profession is an important value for him.
He idolized and enjoyed working. He was great at what he did and always, always performed more and better than he was required to.
He dreamed of becoming a C-suite executive one day, not realizing the challenges he would have to sail across to get there.
A good day at work made him happy and content.
Even with all the mess in the workplace, he was employed, he never gave out, even once, or lost his mind. He was the quiet one who thought getting back to his boss or others in a hurtful tone, will do no good, either to him or them. So why go through the trouble!
He surely did convey how he feels, many times to concerned departments and authorities and yet he never noticed even the slightest change in the work environment or his compensation.
Even with all the underappreciation, he was receiving at work, he never once, compromised work.
I would repeat, he was not worthy of the blame.
No, he was not in a financial crisis. All he needed to do, was put himself first, and that needed only a little bit of courage.
He was so blinded by work and with the attitude of putting his best, that in the process of achieving that, he lost himself. He forgot how to pamper and care for himself. The fact that he was unable to look after his physical and mental health, was not a serious concern for him. He had stopped putting himself first.
The baggage of “responsibility” had overwhelmed him. If you would ask him, what are your hobbies, he would not have an answer. If someone asked him, what he usually likes to do in his free time, his response would be, “Umm….I don’t really know”.
But yes, he always wanted to sleep.
No amount of sleep was starting to be enough to make him feel refreshed.
He was always tired, fatigued, not realizing the harm he is inflicting upon himself.
He politely and often blamed his fate, but that was it.
He never brought it to his face, how he feels. He never compromised the environment of his home because of his work.
Sleep was his escape and if he had a good sleep, he would be grateful for it the next morning.
There was a complete absence of any other mechanism to deal with his situation.
He was tough to influence. He took reference to his hard-working father and encouraged himself to keep going.
I am unsure if he ever found another job or if he expressed his frustration by any means.
What this story explains to me is that some individuals (mostly men) are often, so so far away from their own self and emotions. They are burdened with the obligation to “provide”.
A lot of discussions happen around mental health and how self-care, self-compassion, and self-love should be of crucial importance for a healthy life, and yet, an entire so many of us find it difficult to even acknowledge the emotions in the first place, let alone address them.
“How do you feel?”, you can ask them.
“Good. Okay. Stressed.” This is all they would say.
Embracing emotions is SO important for a healthy being.
I am trying hard to refrain from adding the word “gender” here, but even after so much awareness and “mental health”, being the evergreen trending topic in all corners of digital space, one gender, particularly the “men” is lacking so far behind in living by more relaxed norms.
As someone who encourages expression, a lot, it is beyond my understanding to know how some of these men do it.
You may think I am generalizing, and there still exist men, very much so, who are patriarchal and wouldn’t hesitate to treat women like trash but there is also a section of them, who are facing troubles and who clearly, need help, but would suffer in silence.
This story is a work of fiction, inspired by true bits from someone I know.
I decided to write about it because I feel suffocated to learn the harm that silence is slowly bringing to those who never usually express themselves or those who don’t feel gravely.
Dear men,
Speak up. Express how you feel. Talk about your emotions and your challenges. Cry, if you feel heavy. Venting out frustration is not the same as giving out. Find a way to remove the toxicity accumulating in your soul.
For once, give your heart a life by giving attention to how it feels.
