But don’t you know how important my projects are?

You don’t suffer from workaholism, the people in your life do.

People who overindulge in their careers often do so at the exclusion of their personal relationships. Wedded to their work, they have no time left over for others. Loved ones are left with crumbs. Emotional leftovers. Whatever remains of the day that trickle down their collar.

Ask anyone who knew me in my twenties, they’ll verify the collateral damage this addiction can cause.

And let’s not overlook the suffering of the actual people workaholics work with. They get the worst of it.

Robinson’s depiction in his renowned book is spot on. They’ll drive colleagues crazy with their nitpicking and inability to let things go. When others are ready to move on, they’ll hold them back with their overanalyzing, taking ideas apart, thinking them through from every angle, getting bogged down in the details and sending things back to committee fifteen different times.

No wonder step nine is to make a list of all persons you have harmed, and to become willing to make amends to them all. Our friends, family members and coworkers have suffered enough. They deserve to be apologized to.

Meanwhile, the workaholic’s justification for this pattern of behavior comes from a place of profound grandiosity and ego. It’s best summarized with a question:

Don’t you know how important my projects are?

Which is code for, the world will crumble to pieces and my incompetence will be revealed, unless this email goes out, right now, in the middle of my grandmother’s funeral.

That’s addiction for you. You’re a piece of shit around which the whole world revolves.

What’s needed, ultimately, is a deepening of empathy. Not thinking less of ourselves and our work, but thinking of them less often.

Remembering to consider how our behaviors might negatively affect people in our lives.

All work and no play not only makes us dull boys, it also makes the people we love lonely, exhausted and resentful.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Is your focus on task completion causing you to disregard other people’s feelings?