Some of my friends often tell me that they have no time to think about their near and dear ones, no time to say hello to a dear friend, or no time to scribble a few lines to the one who is deprived of the pleasure of email... No time. I am busy! I get annoyed when people say they are too busy, that they cannot spare a few minutes. We have conveniently given such people a honourific title, 'workaholics', and many are happy to be branded so. The logical conclusion of these people is they end up burn outs. They get absorbed so much with what they do, that they forget their true identity; they think they are what they do! This identification is dangerous and in fact if one starts to identify oneself with what one does, that is the starting point of burnt out...
Maybe it is only the human beings who are endowed with that fifth sense (rationality) or the sixth sense (intuition) to dissociate ourselves from what we do. Being and doing are two completely two different states of existence. The workaholics live the existence of "doing" and they hardly ever "be". Can there be a unsurmountable work which will block a person completely from being what he/she truly is? In reality it cannot be; but then where is the problem? It is in the human mind which wishes to project itself as the busiest person in the world, a thing that he/she can be proud of. People may think that the person was really enterprising, and hardworking... faking is so easy for them.
But there is another way of being while doing the job I am involved with... If I begin to enjoy the job I am busy with, then I am truly being to myself; my whole person is involved with the work; it is pleasure for me to be involved in that job, and no more a burden. But take the case of workaholics, they seldom enjoy their jobs, and that is evident from the fact that they may spend more time complaining how difficult their job is, rather than doing something about it. That is what makes me to think that most of the people who say they are busy are basically faking. In order to hide their idleness, they have to pose as if they are busy with some work or other.
Am I then telling that there cannot be situations where a person has so much of work than he/she can digest? Such a situations are always possible. One can either be or do in the way one approaches the work. You may look at the job as something that needs to be done, and you may do it passively without allowing yourself enter into the work, and you count the hours passed, and look at the clock at every five minutes. On the other hand one may like the job so much that he/she has not realised how the time has passed, and there is no grudge on their part. The latter are not workaholics, they are normal, healthy human persons.
There are times when my work takes precedence over people, and I may become so inhuman to the very people who care for me; such are dangerous symptoms of becoming addicts to the job. What happens when their job comes to an end, and where do they turn to? We need to do our work to the best of our ability, but our work cannot come in the way of our being... however important that work be, it is only next to our being. Today I will pause for a few times during my work, and ask myself, am I a passive workaholic, or do I draw immense pleasure in doing the work I am assigned to. Maybe when I begin to enjoy the job, I may begin to see the world with different eyes, different vision... I may see there is beauty in the work too, and such a realization is sure to take me to the beauty that is within me; that maybe the beginning of my encounter with the Antaryamin, the Lord of my heart!
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