Issue 110
Some people reading this e-mail left home before their children were awake and will return after they have gone to bed. Others know that even when at home, during evenings and weekends, they need to complete a project or a task; still others cannot remember when they last did a 40 hour week, and all feel the strain.
Of course the work style I am describing does not apply to all but the challenge to play the various roles which we have in our lives is faced by the majority, if not all of us. There is a sadness about missing children’s birthdays whilst living out of a suitcase, or arriving home too exhausted or too late to read a story. There is a pain in our souls when we feel unable to feed the needs of our loved ones with a good slice of our attention.
I have lost count of how many conversations I have had with pressurised workers who say that they spend far too much time and energy on things and people who don’t mean so much to them and not enough on those who do. The natural reaction to such people under pressure is to offer support, encouragement and understanding; it is to sympathise with their pain and regret. But the natural reaction may not always be the most helpful. Sometimes questions need to be raised – I will suggest two:
What about those who are on the receiving end of this workstyle? -the husbands, the wives, the children, the friends. Did any of these people agree that the nature of their relationship with you would include your absence? Given the choice, would your children prefer you there or absent? There are always those who pay the price, who are left behind and who long for your presence.
The answer of course is that we do it for them. We want to provide for our families, to support them and to give them as much opportunity in life as possible.
This brings us to the second question. Who are you doing it for? Deep in the human heart is a desire to be enriched. The desire includes achievement, status, meaning, progress and of course, money. There is a real possibility that we can deceive ourselves into believing that we are attempting to provide for our loved ones when our ambition is to provide for ourselves. Temptations being rarely one dimensional, this one could include the attempt to provide far more money than is needed to fund a lifestyle which is high in riches but low on love.
To handle these real and complex dilemmas requires great wisdom. There is a section in the book of Proverbs headed “the sayings of the wise”; there are 30 of these. The seventh one says “do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint . .. ” It goes on to describe the transient nature of riches. There is a lot of wisdom in the bible concerning gaining worlds and losing souls, but the kind of riches we often seek don’t come cheaply; somebody always pays. It is wise from time to time to check out if it’s worth it.
Proverbs 23:4-5
4 Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
have the wisdom to show restraint.
5 Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,
for they will surely sprout wings
and fly off to the sky like an eagle.
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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