A writer friend of mine once told me the reason why he stayed single for all these years.
Women are either in my work, or in my way.
It sounded like a poetic and noble mantra at the time. But ten years after the fact, it actually sounds more compulsive than courageous.
It’s something recovery literature helped me finally understand. Because for workaholics, anyone who gets in the way of our seemingly forward motion is viewed as a tremendous irritation. If we have to wait around for someone who doesn’t operate at our same speed, we grow fiercely impatient. And if people have the audacity to ask us to stop doing our work in order to do something else, we lose our shit.
It sounds like the pull quote from an interview with a billionaire startup executive. The kind of executive profile people glorify and fetishize as the entrepreneur archetype we should all aspire to.
Sorry, but that is not my life anyone.
It’s one thing to be ambitious and focused, it’s another to view people as props in your personal play. It’s one thing to be dedicated to our work, but not at the expense of living life as a whole person.
It’s interesting, we always remember the life events we missed out on while working late, but we never seem to remember the thing we were working on at the time.
Chodron’s words of wisdom from her book about loving kindness come to mind.
Inconvenience is not an obstacle, it’s simply a certain texture of life.
Let us all know the value of pressing the off button, lest we work ourselves to death.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How do interruptions to your energetic flow affect you?* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
It’s the world’s first, best and only product development and innovation gameshow!
Tune in and subscribe for a little execution in public.
Join our community of innovators, artists and entrepreneurs
Subscribe
Daily updates straight to your inbox.
Bio
