Look Again At The List

What had she experienced in the years before that? I want you now, Jim, not in a retirement center. I’m tired of being a widow. I don’t care if we ever live in a retirement center. I want the kids to be able to say their dad took them fishing. Amy’s words stunned her husband. She continued, I don’t know what you want, Jim, but if all you want is to live in this beautiful retirement center, then you’ll have to live here by yourself. This is not what I want. I’m asking you to find a way to live before you retire. Amy’s words stunned her husband. I don’t remember crying since I was a child, but I cried that afternoon, Jim recalled. I heard my father telling me that I would never amount to anything. I saw the years I had invested in trying to prove him wrong, and now I realized that I was in danger of losing everything that was important to me.

Work That Magic

I knew that she was telling me the truth. And through my tears I said, I’m sorry. I know it’s all been very wrong. I was doing what I thought was important. But I was wrong.’ That’s what started a real change in my life. I concluded that I couldn’t cut back my time there because of the pattern already in place, so I began searching for another job. It really was not that hard to leave when I found a new job. I’ve spent several years now rediscovering the real world. I’ve done a lot of thinking, looking back and trying to learn why I had invested so many years thinking that material success was worth paying any cost to achieve. Jim’s conclusion? I realize now that life is relatively short, and we are very foolish if we do not keep a balance between work and family. I’ve observed that few people are ever satisfied with their success in their vocation no matter how much they have achieved.

Like A Runaway Train

I’m convinced we never make it because the goals keep expanding ahead of us. If in trying to be a success, you lose your wife and family, you’ve lost it all. I’ll never regret the day that Amy forced me to face reality. I must confess that by the time Jim finished his story, I had tears in my eyes, tears of joy to meet a man who had awakened from his stupor of obsessiveness with work while his wife was still there and his children still at home. I was eager to talk with Amy and find out the rest of the story. How did she come to her creative approach in getting Jim’s attention? Later I’ll tell you her side of the story, but first let’s take a look at what motivates men to be workaholics. Look again at the list. Many workaholics suffer from a deep sense of inferiority. The seeds were probably planted in childhood. Parents relayed the message, You are not as good as your brother. You are not as smart as your sister. His work is an effort to overcome these feelings of inferiority.

Give Truth A Chance

If he works hard enough and well enough, he will prove to himself and to others that he is not inferior. The person who overworks because he feels inferior must perform on a higher level than those around him. This often means that he must spend more hours away from home pursuing his goal of excellence. When he finishes a task, it seldom meets his own approval. I just don’t think my superior will be happy with this, he reasons. So he spends another hour working on an already excellent report. This perfectionist tendency is another reason the workaholic seldom attacks problems around the house. He doesn’t want to start a project because he doesn’t believe that he can do it the way it ought to be done. Rather than proving himself a failure, he decides it is better not to begin. Many workaholics also feel unloved. Yes, workaholics are motivated by their need for love. Unless the workaholic awakens from his obsessive behavior as Jim did, he may live a lifetime with his need for love unmet. Another need that motivates the workaholic is the need to achieve. The workaholic is often searching for significance. He believes that the fastest way to accomplish something of lasting value is to pursue his vocation with a passion, to accumulate a successful financial portfolio, own a nice house with expensive furnishings. He is searching for significance in the wrong places, but he has not yet made that discovery. They use busyness to avoid getting in touch with their own feelings and/or the feelings of their spouses. For some people, it is much easier to work than it is to relate to a spouse on an emotional level. Someone has said, Men love competition but hate confrontation. Such men see confrontation with their wives as a lose/lose proposition. A husband doesn’t want his wife to lose in a confrontation because she will treat him with even greater harshness, or she will withdraw. He certainly doesn’t want to lose the confrontation because this confirms the parental message of his incompetence. Thus, he stays at the office to avoid coming home to a wife who makes him feel incompetent as a husband or father. For the workaholic, the thought of facing a disgruntled wife is enough to keep him away until she is asleep. If he views himself as incompetent, the last thing he wants is for his wife to concur. If by virtue of his hard work, he has been able to convince himself that he is a success, he certainly does not want to hear his wife rebuff him and repeat the message of his parents. Of course, working wives can become workaholics, too. Often they stay at work, either at the office or in the home study, in order to hide from their husbands and avoid a confrontation.