Can't stop working

I just read an interesting article on ExploreFaith.org called "The Lord's Picnic". I can certainly relate to this paradoxical observation:

Sometimes you just can't get away. Everyone knows the odd combination of longing and dread with which overworked people anticipate their work holidays - longing to be at leisure for a week or two, dread at the pile of work that will await them when they return. It's not worth it to take a vacation, more than one person has told me. I'd be better off not going away at all.

There is more to it than the dread of the accumulated work though. A perverse momentum takes hold in some of us when we are in need of rest: we can't stop working. We don't take it easy - we take it hard. It's as if we were afraid to leave the very thing from which we need a break.

Most exhausted people I talk to go to work earlier than they need to and stay later. Work much more, and accomplish about the same as they would have if they worked normal hours. Maybe less. Their world shrinks to the workplace and the workplace alone. No other arena of their lives command their attention.

Sometimes they think other people would be critical of them if they took it easy, as if there were some moral high ground of martyrdom demanded of them that is not expected of everyone else. Sometimes they think terrible things will happen if they aren't there. They may hate it, but they can't bring themselves to stop.

The truth is, terrible things will happen whether you're there or not. The escalating hours of work, the inability to do anything else - these are symptoms of depression, a loss of self and perspective on the world so profound it can paralyze and even kill if it is not stopped.

I'm improving along this dimension but I have noticed that when I need rest the most, I often press forward the hardest - as if one final burst of energy will magically get me across the finish line and allow me to rest (guilt-free) for as long as I want/need. But it doesn't work that way. As soon as I finish one task, there is another one waiting. There's no end to it. Also, you get into a vicious cycle. You stay up late one night to get some extra work done but that makes you tired the next day. Being tired leads you to be less focused and productive at work which causes you to get less done which causes more work to pile up. Faced with the growing pile of work, you stay up late the next night to "catch up" but the cycle simply continues and gets worse over time. In the end, you're burnt out and no further ahead work-wise than if you had just gotten a full night's sleep to begin with. Also, the consequences of not getting work things done - or at least done on time - is often much less significant than we convince ourselves they are.

That all makes rational sense to me but the irrational part of me still hangs on to its old ways. It wants to believe that I am indispensableble at work, that others are depending on me to get my stuff done on time, and that loyalty to my coworkers dictates that I (automatically) go the extra mile even if I'm not really up to it. It's hard to let go of old ways - they've worked so well for so long. But strengths during one stage of our lives can become Achilles' heels at the next stage of our life (see this post). Things change - hopefully for the better.