“Idleness may well be the devil’s workshop, but busyness is not always a virtue.”
Ronald Rolheiser
Daar is slegs een verslawing wat aanbid word: Werkholisme. Ander verslawings word behandel in klinieke met programme en ondersteuningsgroepe, beraad en selfs gebed. In die meeste gevalle word die oë gerol wanneer verslawing ter tafel is.
Waarom het werkverslawing ‘n deug geword? Hoekom bely niemand :“Hallo ek is Pietie en ‘n werkholis?” Brené Brown sê: “People consider exhaustion a status symbol and view productivity as self-worth.”
Henri Nouwen het ‘n mooi metafoor vir werk gehad: ‘n Tas wat hopeloos te swaar is om te dra. Ons is doodeenvoudig nie gemaak om al die goed te doen, te besit en instand te hou wat ons glo ons gelukkig maak nie. Henri sê: “Our lives often seem like overpacked suitcases bursting at the seams. In fact, we are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, unrealized proposals. There is always something else we should have remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit.”
Die prys wat ons hiervoor betaal is uitbranding. Psigies, geestelik en dan ook fisies. In Japan het hulle ‘n woord ‘karaoshi’ wat beteken ‘death through work.’
Jesus het gewaarsku dat ‘n verkeerde werksetiek my verhouding met God ten diepste raak. Dink maar aan Martha wat die voete van Jesus heeltemal mis! (Luk 10:38-42). Die vraag is hoe ek die Martha binne my kan raaksien? Hoe kan ons minder oor ons werk praat en meer oor die verhoudings waarbinne God ons geplaas het? Hoe ontdek ek myself los van die rol wat ek in my werk moet vervul? Daar lê ‘n groot stuk genesing vir elkeen van ons binne hierdie ontdekking.
“Human beings have always employed an enormous amount of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems. We can keep ourselves busy, fill our lives with so many diversions, stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve ourselves with so many people, and cover so much ground that we never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world within. More often than not we don’t want to know ourselves, don’t want to depend on ourselves, don’t want to live with ourselves. By middle life, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.”
John W. Gardner, Self-Renewal
- Deur Theo Geyser