Great post. Personally I could not stand Lean In. There were some good points but also I just couldn't feel much sympathy with rich person problems. There are sooo many more issues of inclusivity and people making livable wages that take precedence. From the group I knew who read it and loved it, my opinion was not a popular one. Oh well.
I feel like we are living a parallel life here. Bed rotting is such a terrible and perfect word for what it is. And I'm constantly on the edge of it each day, after I find myself overdoing all the other stuff I'm trying to complete.
Definitely relate. I feel like after a lifetime of striving and working crazy hours and putting everything I have into work that I am spent, especially since the past 15 years of work has been combined with raising children. The things that made work enjoyable for me (the camaraderie, the banter, the feeling of being part of something larger) have largely disappeared with WFH, which makes the grind even less appealing. Colleagues met through a screen are never the same as colleagues you sit next to - it's hard to forge the same closeness. But how we find an alternative sense of meaning in our lives once we walk away from grind culture is the trick - society still judges us on what we've achieved, rather than who we are. My own kids are questioning what I'm doing with my life while I'm on a self-imposed sabbatical: it's terrifying to think that they find it's hard to conceive of a person's value without a job.
A retired person here looking back on working for money, then working for none as a parent and then working for none as a volunteer...it never seemed I was doing enough. And yet here I am with two great adult kids and a “not rich but enough” retirement. As much as I enjoy your writing, please feel free to skip it when you need to. I don’t get “my money’s worth” per issue. Your content is enough.
Wow, bed rot! What a term! I can relate though. I'm hurting in all sorts of body parts as I get nearer to 50. I forget I shouldn't be pushing myself as hard or else I'll be in pain for weeks! My mind has so many ideas and things I want to do but physically can't. :/
Great post. I dunno if I can relate to bed rot, but I can definitely relate to the misery brought on by the toxic “grind” mentality. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about how the way we set goals often serves to make us miserable, because we focus so much on things that are out of our control. For example, my goal of getting 500 subscribers by the end of the year sounds like a pretty run-of-the-mill goal, right? But it’s not very good, because it requires the consent of 500 people. No matter how much I grind away at it, my own grind will never be enough. So maybe we can set better goals that work for us, instead of against us.
Dismantling grind culture—it ain't easy
Great post. Personally I could not stand Lean In. There were some good points but also I just couldn't feel much sympathy with rich person problems. There are sooo many more issues of inclusivity and people making livable wages that take precedence. From the group I knew who read it and loved it, my opinion was not a popular one. Oh well.
I feel like we are living a parallel life here. Bed rotting is such a terrible and perfect word for what it is. And I'm constantly on the edge of it each day, after I find myself overdoing all the other stuff I'm trying to complete.
Definitely relate. I feel like after a lifetime of striving and working crazy hours and putting everything I have into work that I am spent, especially since the past 15 years of work has been combined with raising children. The things that made work enjoyable for me (the camaraderie, the banter, the feeling of being part of something larger) have largely disappeared with WFH, which makes the grind even less appealing. Colleagues met through a screen are never the same as colleagues you sit next to - it's hard to forge the same closeness. But how we find an alternative sense of meaning in our lives once we walk away from grind culture is the trick - society still judges us on what we've achieved, rather than who we are. My own kids are questioning what I'm doing with my life while I'm on a self-imposed sabbatical: it's terrifying to think that they find it's hard to conceive of a person's value without a job.
A retired person here looking back on working for money, then working for none as a parent and then working for none as a volunteer...it never seemed I was doing enough. And yet here I am with two great adult kids and a “not rich but enough” retirement. As much as I enjoy your writing, please feel free to skip it when you need to. I don’t get “my money’s worth” per issue. Your content is enough.
Wow, bed rot! What a term! I can relate though. I'm hurting in all sorts of body parts as I get nearer to 50. I forget I shouldn't be pushing myself as hard or else I'll be in pain for weeks! My mind has so many ideas and things I want to do but physically can't. :/
Great post. I dunno if I can relate to bed rot, but I can definitely relate to the misery brought on by the toxic “grind” mentality. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about how the way we set goals often serves to make us miserable, because we focus so much on things that are out of our control. For example, my goal of getting 500 subscribers by the end of the year sounds like a pretty run-of-the-mill goal, right? But it’s not very good, because it requires the consent of 500 people. No matter how much I grind away at it, my own grind will never be enough. So maybe we can set better goals that work for us, instead of against us.