Conscious Choice: Why Do They Work So Hard?

September 1996

Why Do They Work So Hard?

by Patricia Katherine Novick

As a therapist, I see many patients who feel that their lives are out of balance; in particular, they find themselves spending more time than they would like at work, or doing work, whether it’s on the job or at home. Most of my training taught me to help them seek ways to reduce the work commitment and increase their family or recreational time. For many people, that rebalancing of time is important.

Yet, I continue to see around me people who work immense numbers of hours, but who seem to do so with a joy and a zeal that gives no sense that there is stress or dissatisfaction anywhere in their being. For this article, I spoke to several of those people (not, I should stress, my patients). Most of them work close to a hundred hours each and every week.

Their words, I believe, contain substantial insights into the factors that make work meaningful and satisfying. Psychologists Suzanne Kobasa and Salvatore Maddi studied illness patterns and stress among business managers; they found that certain qualities or attitudes affect whether or not an individual was likely to become sick after a stressful event. They reported that people who have a sense of personal commitment to what they are doing, who feel in control of their lives, and who believe life to be challenging, tend to be resistant to many kinds of illness. Kobasa and Maddi coined the term “stress-hardy” for these individuals, whose primary attributes include hardiness, commitment, sense of control, and enjoyment of challenge. On the other hand, fear, chronic worry, anger, impatience, inflexibity, and perfectionism all lead to the inability to relax, which causes wear and tear on the mind and body and leaves the individual susceptible to stress-related symptoms.

I think you will see, as you read these excerpts, that these are people whose pleasure in their work seems to innoculate them against the potential stresses of imbalance, and seems to heighten the quality of all their experiences.

Carolyn Schuham
My mother was an entrepreneur. She was always opening new businesses. She modeled for me the importance of being a constructive, productive person. The message I got at home was, “Who am I without my work?” Today, people tell me that I “over-do” or that I “work too hard.” A second reason for my lively engagement with many projects is that I am a seven on the Enneagram. My mind is always active and I am constantly creating new projects for myself from my million good ideas. New projects and new ideas for ventures are constantly being generated in my head. There are always so many delicious opportunities for me out there to keep me busy. There is a magical quality to my engagement with new ideas. It is what keeps me going.
Carolyn Schuham is a therapist in private practice and a partner in the Midwest Institute for Enneagram Studies.

Mohammed Rafiq
I spent years of my life in MIS (Manager, Information Systems). It was a safe career, but just not challenging for me anymore. One day, a friend brought his child to my child’s birthday party and we began to chat. He told me that he had a store for sale and asked if I would be interested. I jumped at the chance! It felt like the perfect opportunity for me to express myself. I now work all the time; I have a single-minded determination and focus. I call myself the manager/owner. I am more aware of being a manager than an owner in my daily tasks. I often find myself working from early morning hours to late in the evening. The interesting thing is that I am not tired. I feel energized by the challenge and the importance of the work. I am also driven by fear. I have a family to feed; they are dependent on me as the provider. Their security is directly dependent on my work. So I am driven to work so hard because it is exciting to be on my own in a new venture and I am concerned for my family’s welfare. My family often complains that they don’t see me enough, and I have to explain that this is the cost of being an adventurer.
Mohammed Rafiq owns and runs the Grand Food Mart at 400 E. Randolph, Chicago, Illinois.

David Choi
Our duty is to perform as best we can, otherwise there is no real meaning in the world. It is just like salt and pepper in food, bringing seasoning. People helping themselves and thus helping society. When you walk on the beach you see lots of sand but you don’t notice the tiny grains of gravel that make up all that sand. If there was not all that wonderful tiny gravel, there would be no beaches. I work more than 100 hours a week and I never feel tired. I just don’t see work as work. It is all part of my being in the world. My working is like playing golf, which I love. From the minute I get up in the morning, I count my strokes. I pay attention all the time and I play the inner game of golf all the time and it feels truly beautiful for me.
David Choi owns and runs Jim’s Grill, 1429 W. Irving Park; and Amitabul, l3418 N. Southport; both in Chicago, Illinois.

Bhaswati Bhattacharya
Some people may perceive that I work too hard because most of what I do for fun overlaps so much with my career work. What I do in medicine, public health, and holistic medicine and the healing arts unites a vision I have for recreating a health care system that is in balance and harmony with our planet, replacing the disease care system that seems to feed our spiritual immaturity.

My work helps me grow on a spiritual level; it comforts me and connects me to the human condition through my help to heal other people’s lives, and it provides me the fodder for developing my own thinking about why it is that we don’t allow ourselves to heal more fully. Like my father, my work is an expression of my commitment to myself: he has taught me the meanings of perserverance, benevolence and strength of will. Work for me is proof that each of us can take the stagnant aspects of our material Beings and release into that magical energy that creates change and life around us.
Bhaswati Bhattacharya, MA, MPH is a public health consultant and is completing her third year of medical school at Rush Medical College. She serves on several committees and organizations involved with holistic medicine, pharmacology, and public health.

Doug Strubel
Why do I work so hard? I am a consultant. In my business, business marketing, I work directly for clients to solve problems and implement solutions. Timing is critical. The sooner I complete a project, the quicker it gives the client a competitive advantage.

Also, the industry practice of billing time on an hourly basis means the harder I work, the more value I bring to the client. Each project must be viewed as an opportunity to earn repeat business. Personally I enjoy and thrive off the adrenaline created by my work’s “up or out” pressure. If I didn’t enjoy such an environment, consulting would be the wrong career.
Doug Strubel is a consultant with The Richmark Group, Inc., an international business, marketing, and consulting group.

Susan Munaker
I love to work hard. For me to work hard presupposes that I have a purpose for my activity. The purpose may revolve around a social issue, learning something new, working with and for a client, or planning a major project such as a party or buying a place to live.

I have an on-off switch. In fact, I have an on switch which equals “work hard” and an off switch which equals “veg out.” I do moderate work in between because I have learned moderation to survive. And I’ve learned the joys in periods of balance. There is no doubt that my most satisfying times and most productive are at either of the extremes.

How can I be productive during veg-out times? At those times when I am either too tired, unfocused, or simply between projects (what some may call a normal life), I just let go. I exercise frequently, go to movies, read, and watch TV. During true veg-out periods, I am rather solitary, and need lots of external stimulation, wanting to give back very little. What I’ve learned is that it is in these periods of seeming inactivity that the ideas and energy are germinating for my next focused project. When I complete my doctorate in October, my next learning will be about balance. Check back.
Susan Munaker &Associates offer organizational development and management consulting, located in Chicago.

Helen Chen
In the past, I’ve felt strange whenever anyone has asked me why I work so hard. For many years, working hard has been a part of me. I was raised in Taiwan and have pursued graduate studies and work in the U.S. Feeling marginalized in both cultures, I have felt misunderstood and discriminated against. By working hard to go beyond these boundaries, I have survived and shined. I have kept my attention focused on my goals and I have never deviated from the path I have chosen.

My family belonged to an ethnic group called the Hakka. We were discriminated against and our group worked harder to educate their children. In addition I was born a girl in a male-dominated culture. I felt that I had to be powerful to overcome the disappointment to my parents at not having a son. I worked hard and got an MBA and pursued a career as a manager. I am now working on my Ph.D. in order to advance myself even farther. Working hard has been my survival tool and my joy in both Eastern and Western society.
Helen Chen is Project Assistant in Accounts Payable at the University of Chicago.

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