Everybody would agree the work - life balance got lost somewhere. The new occupational diseases are called burnout and depression. Reported solutions range from mindfulness to low calorie diets. What is going on? We talked ourselves into a value system that is oppressing and depressing. And although we know it is wrong, we persist in evil.
1) This evil value system makes us recognise our fellow human being because of his merits and his performance only, and not because of the human being he really is. In biblical language, we could say we are obedient to the Mammon; we adore something that is not worth adoration. We think we are respectful, but we only show respect to the winner of the rat race. Our children need to be perfect and we need to be perfect, but our perfectionism only aims at our outer performance not at our entire human being. Meritocracy, the Frankenstein monster that we created ourselves, holds us in its claws.
2) The speed of traffic and media disturbs our sense of reality. Our expectations prove to be unrealistic all the time. We deny our limitations rigorously. It is a sin of hubris.
3) Efficiency is everything. Beauty needs to step aside for function and performance. Never in history has fashion been so contrary to beauty.
4) We don't recognise the small things in life. We don't make time neither for each other, nor for anything unimportant. It is always good to make a little walk and talk to the neighbour. Let us please reintroduce Sunday silence. I refer to my previous blogs time and energy in households and meritocracy is merito-crazy.
2 comments:
I fully agree with you, Wim. We human beings have lost our core values. We fool ourselves with the excuse that there is no other option to "survive".
But there is. As you say in the last point, everybody should start by recognising the small things in life. That's a start, but the rest of things come just after it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Still a good blog post. In the 8 years since it was posted, not much has changed.
Maybe one small change is that with the covid virus having made working from home a norm rather than an exception, there is a necessary merging of work-life and, if nothing else, one sees one's family more. And, they see us.
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