Maybe you spotted Dalton Conley’s Op-Ed piece in the The NYTimes earlier this week. (Hint: Kottke posted an excerpt on Wednesday.) The article suggests that working harder to earn more is becoming an endless loop — earning more then compels you to work more — and Americans who make more are actually more stressed than their lower-income counterparts.
…it is now the rich who are the most stressed out and the most likely to be working the most. Perhaps for the first time since we’ve kept track of such things, higher-income folks work more hours than lower-wage earners do.
Conley cites several (non-technological) factors contributing to the phenomenon including an increasing income opportunity for each hour worked as well as the growing disparity between the middle and the top. In other words, the higher you climb the economic ladder, the greater the gap between each new rung. Keeping up with the Jones’ gets increasingly difficult.
All that aside, it’s just really easy to work. Anyone practicing inside a high-demand industry is familiar with lost opportunity cost. Idle time begins to feel wasteful when you can literally work anywhere, any time. Especially when you like what you do.
Layer on top of that the nagging realization that you can’t really control demand, and you have a window into the work ethic of pretty much anyone I know working in the internets.
So much for getting ahead. The good life™ has a new brand new groove.
I think Conley’s sentence
is the key to this phenomena.
Do you do things because they satisfy you, or do you do things so you can stack up socially? Competition never ends, so unless you love the competition, you’re going to be stressed. It’s better to find a different game to play.