The Invisible Epidemic of Life Deficit Disorder

The symptoms are under the radar, but you'll probably recognize them. A friend says, "How are you?" and you tick off a litany of projects you're working on. A rare free moment touches off the alarm to get busy. Someone asks you what you do for fun, and you can't think of anything.

These are all telltale signs of a growing affliction in 24/7 times -- life deficit disorder. You've lost that livin' feeling. More and more of us are too busy to live, or so we think, and when we do get some living in, we're too guilty or out of practice at it to enjoy it. The culprit is a mammoth identity theft that has taken over our brains -- the performance identity. It has convinced many of us that we have to be in task formation every minute of the day, or we're terminal slackers. This interloper is dedicated to keeping you as consumed as possible with output, every shred of which, it would have you believe, is of life-or-death importance. In comparison, your life off-the-clock appears to be a sideshow, an interruption in productivity.

The performance ID makes you think you are what you do and forces you to go through gyrations to justify getting some life in. It dictates that all value comes from output. Step back from nonstop performance, and you are valueless. You feel twitchy, fidgety, in other words, guilty as charged for violating the rules of the competition to have less of a life than the next person.

Production is a good thing -- we all need to feel competent, accomplish things, provide valuable services -- but not to the exclusion of the whole point of the production, the experience of life actually lived. It's very difficult to get life in your life when the performance ID is in control. The compulsion is to keep filling time, instead of finding ways to make it fulfilling, which is what our brains want.

Depend solely on performance for validation, and you can't really live, because the imposter ID is programmed only for output. The work mind can't play, since enjoyment is a realm of input -- about experiencing, not outcome. Using the work mind to produce fun is like having somebody keep minutes at your picnic. I know a woman in Arizona who spreadsheets her vacations down to the last hour. Whoopee. Surveys tell us many people will be returning from Labor Day vacations disappointed that they didn't get everything "done" or seen on their trips, as if they were expecting some kind of holiday performance review. We wind up doing life as if it was work.

The performance ID has no idea how to generate fun and aliveness. It knows only how to keep you running from the productivity police. You want fun? How about a little inventory metadata? Don't you need to check email you just checked five minutes ago? You can never let up, because there's always something next on the list.

Life deficit disorder is aided and abetted by the reflexive work style that prevails today, in which the premium is on acting before thinking, amped by the false emergency of time urgency and the ADD circus of tech tools run amok. It's all counterproductive to the work as well as your life. Multitasking actually slows you down, numerous studies show. You're not doing several high-thought tasks simultaneously. You're switching back and forth between them. That slows you down. Time urgency fuels rushing and rushing fuels mistakes and stress, not to mention heart attacks.

Performance-based worth is also a loser. It creates only the need to validate through more performance. The reality is that the job is only a small part of who you are. It's what psychologists call a persona, a mask that describes your social role, but it's not the whole you. When you think it is, you lose track of the authentic person behind the mask and that character's needs, interests, values and even the abilities necessary to live your life.

Stanford's Mark Cullen told me about research he did while at Yale's School of Medicine with some of the most successful executives in the country. They had achieved considerable wealth and status, but a couple days after walking out the door into retirement, these no-longer-execs felt worthless. They weren't producing anymore. That's how fragile the performance ID is. The men in Cullen's study had no leisure skills and didn't know what to do with themselves. So after working their whole lives to be able to have the freedom to live, they didn't know how!

Contrary to every message we get, living a rich and fulfilling life takes skills, which I detail in Don't Miss Your Life. As long as the performance ID is running the show, we can't develop those skills, because everything must be done for some "instrumental purpose," as the University of Rochester's Edward Deci terms it, a demonstrable external payoff. We blow off avocations and diversions, because what would we really get out of them? Where would they get us? These are the kind of cockamamie questions that lead to life deficit disorder.

The evidence shows that the production ID is a flop when it comes to creating real value, which comes from a broad, self-determined view that you are competent and worthy to enjoy life, and from the actual experience of same. The thrill of a job promotion is gone in two weeks. Then you have to find a new notch to pump yourself up with. Performance is an external gauge, so it wears off quickly and doesn't move your internal meter.

Define yourself by how busy you are, and you will never have time for life. What's going to matter in the end is not how booked-up you were, or the tally of tasks handled, but the experiences that let you know that the living you made yourself was actually indulged in. As psychologist Erik Erikson put it, when you look back you'll want to know, "Did I get what I came for? Was it a good time? Did I do what I wanted?" Reclaim your real ID from the performance con and the answer can be a resounding Yes.

Joe Robinson is an author and work-life balance trainer and speaker whose new book, Don't Miss Your Life, is a samba-dancing, dragon-boat paddling, rock-climbing ride through the science, skills, and spirit of full-tilt living. The book comes out Oct. 25. For more info, visit twitter.com/worklifeskills, dontmissyourlife.net (Sept. 14), and worktolive.info.

 

 

 

Follow Joe Robinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/WorkLifeSkills

Comments

[ColumbiaPatricia]

03:43 PM on 09/28/2010

I once had a boyfriend who asked me after I relaxed and entire weekend if I felt bad. I said No, why. He says: "Because you did not accomplish anything"

Note: He was a super under acheiver himself. And, we stopped dating.

I don't have to accomplish something every free moment of my life to be happy or important. Just being me counts as happiness.

[Patricia Poteau Mellen]

08:10 PM on 09/12/2010

I know people like this. Success to them is measured by how much sleep they lost, how little time they spent at home, how much they can juggle at once with the help of their electronic devices. One has to wonder, though, what they will regret most in their final days: that deal they might have lost along the way, or the time lost with the ones they love that they squandered on the chase.

[Barbie40]

02:53 PM on 09/10/2010

Try being married to a person like this. It's horrible. They never view you as an equal, because your not working as hard as them. The truth is they are exhausting. Since they spend every minute working, you have to pick up the slack in every other area of their lives--family, home, health care, school. You become so emotionally drained from being the one that takes care of everything else and from the belittling from them how you do it wrong that you walk around like an exhausted zombie from all the fighting. Workaholics are just like alcoholics abusive.

[drumsing]

07:13 AM on 09/10/2010

The Difference Between a Meaning and Purpose. Meaningful Life is what we receive/be. Purposeful life is what we do. "The work mind can't play, since enjoyment is a realm of input -- about experiencing, not outcome."

[blueskyseas]

03:42 AM on 09/10/2010

There was a study reported day before yesterday on the local and national (abc cbd nbc) news saying "Money can buy happiness...to a point" stating emotional well-being increases with income until you hit $75,000. After that the increase was in feelings of "success".

[susie4153]

11:48 PM on 09/09/2010

I might also add that after being a total workaholic for too long, i honestly no longer know how to be a woman, wife, friend, member of a family etc.. I dont remember much of the things that i used to like or want to do, i have no feelings of excitement to pursue any of the interests i do remember i had 10yrs ago, i dont pay attention to my pets, i dont care about much of anything. just recently my boyfriends mom look at me in amazement because of something i said & she exclaimed "your family, will you please act like it"?! She wasnt angry, she just couldnt believe my feelings of detachment & i looked at her when she said this & told her "i dont know how to act like a memeber of a family" & i was very serious. All i know how to do is work.

[T Pol]

09:23 AM on 09/10/2010

You've taken the first step by being self-aware about this. I hope you will take the next step and get some professional help to reclaim the "rest of you." I sounds like your boyfriend's mom misses the "rest of you."

I can relate to your story in some ways. When you aren't paying attention to pets, that's a big sign of being on the road to depression. I wish all great things...I suspect the "rest of you" is a fantastic person.

[Joe Robinson]

10:07 PM on 09/12/2010

Susie--Thanks for your very personal window on the performance identity. The takeover happens gradually, but over time it does hijack your entire being and even imagination to think that anything could be different. But it's a false story, since it's coming from the fake ID. I'm very familiar with this syndrome, and would be happy to help you reclaim your life. Burnout and overwork can lead to depression and worse, so it's important to take steps, which you've done with your comments. There's a beautiful life out there beyond where the depersonalization can't see. Please contact me at the email address at http://www.worktolive.info --Joe Robinson

[susie4153]

11:37 PM on 09/09/2010

Wonderfully said!!! Ive thought this for years but if you dare mention it, then your viewed as lazy, uncarring etc..etc.. Personally i think this constant job identity demand atmosphere fuels behaviors such as alcohol & drug-legal & illegal- abuse, affairs & other searches to feel ANYTHING that is different than the "going to work" ho-hum. I have lost 2 relationships because of my workaholism & now just spend most of my time off work alone & being dictated to by the clock waiting & watching for when its time to go to work.

[AllanHunkin]

09:48 PM on 09/09/2010

Part 1 of 2

Joe… what an incredible article. I couldn’t agree more and I dedicated half a chapter in “Finding The Elegant Solution In Any Situation” to put forward one of the ways we get drawn into this very insidious looping virus...

One day our boss came to us and said “hey team… we are really behind this month. I need to ask you a favor.”“You need to do ‘more.’ You need to ‘do it faster’ and… I really need you to do it ‘with less resources ’ this time. The company really needs you to come through this month… will you do it?

We all said ‘YES’ and rushed back to our desk to dig in.

And we did come through… big time!

Sitting around with the team at the end of the month, just about to start celebrating the impressive results our boss rushes in and says:

“Great job ‘team’ and I wish we could celebrate but we’ve been hammered again, by foreign competition this time, and I really need for you to… do more, with fewer resources and I especially need to for you, this month to do it even faster."

And on it goes...

Joe, any conscious being of average intelligence can clearly see, that the only nature, logical conclusion to this cycle is ‘Death by Exhaustion.

But we don’ see it and we do it again and again…

continued...

[peachpage01]

07:02 PM on 09/09/2010

I would think that if a person had interests prior to becoming this busy, that they would/could make time for them. I think the problem is that some people just haven't developed any interests so they fill their time with work work work.

[TheMacIsCrazy]

01:57 PM on 09/11/2010

I have to agree with you

[Levonsky]

02:55 PM on 09/09/2010

I've got "Born Poor, Gotta Work For A Living" Syndrome.

[hellboundtrain]

11:54 AM on 09/09/2010

Breath Deeply Go Slow

When vacations are on the agenda, just go and have the time of your life!
Life can be self scripting if left to its own devices,

[ColumbiaPatricia]

11:42 AM on 09/09/2010

I recently, on impulse, took up an offer to visit NYC. Everyone keep asking me what I was planning to do. I said "I don't know - my whole life is planned so I am not planning anything" This shocked most people. They could not believe I did not have the entire trip planned. I had the best time and no I did not see all of NYC but what I did see and esperience was wonderful. It was so great to go on a spur of the moment trip with a friend and no specific plans. Just Wonderful

[Kevin Bradley]

04:08 PM on 09/09/2010

I did that once, back in the 90's. Went to New Orleans on a 3 day weekend and wouldn't you know it was right at Mardi Gras! Had to take the only hotel room I could find. It cost 450 for one night! But next day I managed to find something cheaper. Had the best time ever!

[BlackJAC]

10:20 AM on 09/09/2010

What about those of us who actually value and cherish what little free time we can scrounge, only to have it hijacked by others within three picoseconds of us announcing we have said free time?

[Kevin Bradley]

02:53 AM on 09/09/2010

I've always hated the clichéd advice, "If you want to get something done, give it to busy person." What a load of BS! And by knuckling under and taking on more and more, we give our corporate overlords the idea that it's OK, since we didn't complain. When we quit complaining, they assume we have too many employees and they downsize the office. By "going along" and "not making waves" we are also responsible for being overworked. Not blaming the victim here, as Corporate America has drilled it into our brains that we ARE expendable.

I'm disabled, and have been for a while now. I still find it hard to accept that I can't do more than I am already. It always seems there are groceries I need, housework to try and get done, etc. I'm still in the mindset that a busy me is a happy me, and that's really not true. When I am too ill to do things, I hate it and feel worthless. (and yes, that's why I'm in therapy...)

[eric14]

07:42 AM on 09/09/2010

You are not expendable to yourself. Experiencing things you like now becomes a priority. Recently, I had to say to heck with housework for a couple of weeks. Nothing happened! House doesn't look so different. My best wishes.

[BlackJAC]

10:31 AM on 09/09/2010

Try this on for size: a running gag in my busy, hectic pseudo-life is battling the hour-long commute home, using side routes I long ago mapped out in order to circumnavigate any traffic jams that pop up on a highway where there's always a traffic jam at some point, only to find out upon arriving home that I have to jump right back into the car and perform some favor for a family member who was under the mistaken notion that calling me beforehand to tell me it was coming up so I could at least prepare for it would make me angrier than springing it on me right when I came home.

[eric14]

11:31 AM on 09/09/2010

Diversion is all I can offer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nzp0_Hafo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHa-fEpMkJ0&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_QNKw0nTpk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-HLxpWGCzc

[Mary Darling Montero, LCSW]

10:27 PM on 09/08/2010

"I know a woman in Arizona who spreadsheets her vacations down to the last hour. Whoopee. Surveys tell us many people will be returning from Labor Day vacations disappointed that they didn't get everything "done" or seen on their trips, as if they were expecting some kind of holiday performance review. We wind up doing life as if it was work."

Wonderful article. For me, the above encompasses your point so well.

[Susan Shaffer]

10:41 PM on 09/08/2010

sadly, I know someone who spends her holidays like this also. She has mitochondrial diseases and expects only to live a couple more years. These are the holidays that she has with her kids. I understand her thinking, that she is giving them lots of memories. However some of the best memories are made just sitting and talking with people

[eric14]

07:43 AM on 09/09/2010

Getting and making food together and eating outside. Memories are made of this.