180 More On Workaholism

I've recently tried to tackle the problem of workaholism, but I'm afraid there are a few more aspects to the issue that I would like to expound on.

When I'm talking about the "problem" of workaholism, I am, of course, referring to the issue from what I would consider to be a Christian aspect, referring thus to Christians, since it's obvious that the majority of the world's population would not consider the issue a problem at all: Their work is what they live for; it is, essentially, their life.
Especially men are notorious for defining their worth, in fact, themselves, by numbers: the numbers on their bank account, the number of cubic centimeters of oil their car's motor holds, or even more seemingly trivial numbers, such as the inches that constitute the size of certain body parts...
If anything threatens to diminish those numbers, their lives are sometimes drastically reduced to nothing (they feel), and - as the recent movie "Up In the Air" with George Clooney showed - some people consider their lives as good as over when the worst conceivable thing happens to them and they lose their jobs.

But what about the Christian aspect on these things? Christian, as in, more than one hour a week Christianity? What did or would Jesus (= Jesus Christ: founder of Christianity) have to say about it?

First of all, the word "workaholism" implies that we're dealing with some form of addiction here. As a Christian, you would certainly consider alcoholism a problem. - Or any addiction to any intoxicating substance, for that matter. Workaholism, on the other hand, probably the biggest addiction of the last century, has a much more politically correct slant to it in that it brings a family the sort of things modern families have learned not to live without: all those gimmicks advertised to us just about non-stop everywhere, on the tube, the internet, on billboards... you name it.
We figure, work equals money, and money equals our wives' and children's happiness and security.

I'm going to be honest with you and admit that probably the reason why I'm in any position at all to write as weird a blog as this one is largely due to the fact that I have a partner whose happiness luckily is generally not defined by any of the numbers mentioned above that usually define a man's self-worth. - In addition to the fact that I happen to belong to the group of personality types which simply lack the energy for the game of numbers by which we impress our fellow humans, especially those of the other sex.

So, let's have a look at what we could safely assume would be Jesus' position on workaholism.
Was He into our macho game of "I'll impress you by my capabilities as a solid provider for my family," etc.?

First of all, we can assume that if He would have considered a man's highest duty to pursue his job until His dying day, He would have saved Himself a lot of trouble by sticking to carpentry, instead of persuading at least 12 male members of the working force that we know of to abandon their careers (and families) in order to join Him on what might be considered some rather vague and hazy ambition of... errr... saving the world from its erroneous ways. - And which erroneous ways, exactly? Could they possibly have been exactly what we are talking about? - The Matrix? - The Machine?

We already covered a few things Jesus said that didn't exactly coincide with the universal message of "Get a Job!", like the stuff that most working folks hate so much about Him: you know, the lilies of the field talk, and that outrageous statement of not being able to serve God and Mammon simultaneously, in Matthew 6.
That was bad enough.
Then there was, "Labour not for the meat that perisheth." In English, this would mean: Don't work for food that rots away. He said to work for a different sort of food. The type that would last forever. Of course, He was talking about the distribution of His teachings in a sense, but some folks have gone and made a whole industry out of that, too.
And with all the "spiritual food industry" has to offer, does it effectively equip folks with a living relationship with God, an established means of communication with Him that's also going to spill over on others? - Not in the case of most Christians I know.

People are always quick to pull out the few verses that justify what they're doing, such as the few that seem to advocate the pursuit of their jobs: "He that shall not work shall not eat," and of course, their all-time favorite, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," which is what the Lord told Adam as a result of the curse he had brought upon us all by his disobedience, that we still seem to be haunted by... Unless we don't have a reason to doubt our Salvation, the one reason why Jesus came to redeem us in the first place: the process that would (and should) reverse and annul the result of the curse in our lives.
But again, the reason most folks are insecure about their Salvation is because they are not familiar enough with the Word of God which repeatedly assures them of it (if they believe in Jesus), and the reason they are not familiar with it, is that they are too busy chasing after money. Instead of spending the time to find out how much God really loves them, they settle for the industrial, fast-food version of spirituality: "Come back next Sunday for your next fix!"

Unfortunately, the way the Christian establishment works nowadays is that they encourage their flock to keep doing things exactly this way, since they need their members' money in order to feed the machine they have created, which has often become just another branch of the giant Matrix of Mammon.

Let's be honest: The place of importance of the two commandments Jesus said were the top two, and basically the essence of them all (namely, to love God and others) has been replaced in the lives of most of us by the great commandment of Mammon: "Thou shalt earn money!"

And, since we are all so much into numbers, let's prove it: How many hours a week do we spend loving God and our fellowmen, compared to the amount of hours we spend labouring for the meat that perisheth? Honestly? If we work 5 times 8 hours a week, how much time and energy do we have left for the two great commandments? It would probably be a generous estimate to say that most of us might be able to eke out perhaps an hour a day for God, and maybe 1 to 3 hours for our families and friends? That adds up to half of what we dedicate to our work. In other words, we are twice as obedient to the great commandment of Mammon than we are to the commandments of God. Of course, you won't hear anybody in the churches preach that...
And we all know that the above was a generous estimate. The people I'm really talking about usually work 10 to 12 hours a day, and spend maybe two or three hours maximally on their faith and with their families, and much of that is due to the fact that they still have to eat sometime.

So, what would Jesus say about our modern System and the way most of us practice our religion nowadays? Of course, we're hoping He would understand. "You know, Lord: everybody does it that way! You can't just stop working! We can't just all start following You and preaching the Gospel, the way You and Your disciples did..."

No, of course not.

But maybe - just maybe - He might remind us of what the priorities are, according to His rules, and that by and large, we're failing to live up to that. Perhaps He might also prompt us to try to find a solution and a slightly better balance in our lives between our jobs and that which He obviously considers more important. And perhaps we'd find out that less is sometimes more: Less money does not always necessarily equal a lesser quality of life, but - if you're out for the Real Thing, at all - you might find out, as I have, less money might actually help you appreciate more what you've already got and inspire you to spend more time appreciating it, including our awesome God and the folks He has given us to tug along on our journey through life.
Because, at the end of the day, all those numbers, completely regardless of their sum and the amount of their digits, you can't take them with you when it's over.


"Well, but what if everybody would start working less? - The System would collapse! The Chinese would take over!!!... The end of the world...." - I already hear them protest in my mind. Well, just for your information: the System is already collapsing anyway, and it's going to collapse sooner or later regardless of any of your doings. Paper money is going to be history before long, and it's not because you decided to work only 6 or 7, instead of 10 or 12 hours.
The end of the world as we know it is going to come one way or the other, and whether it's only going to constitute a new and better beginning for you or a dreadful plunge into icy water will largely depend on the amount of time you're willing to invest today in the things that last, instead of merely the meat that perisheth...

I guess, in the end, it all depends on where our faith, our hearts (and our treasure) really are: whether in this world with all the things that money can buy, all the security it promises and the self-esteem it gives us, or in the One Who called His out of this world, because they simply were not really part of it...