Time out of Mind

Notwithstanding recent events that . . . ummm . . . show the United States in a hair-raising, house-is-on-fire, sound-the-alarm-bells poor light, I’m incredibly proud and privileged to be an American. But while I think that we Americans as a group have any number of traits to be admired and that distinguish us (hello, creativity, idealism, and a can-do spirit), we also have ones that harm and/or hold us back. I want to focus just one here: workaholism.

Work Out

It’s pretty well documented that the United States is lousy about allowing for time off of work. Much less, paid time off. This goes for paid holidays off, and employer-granted paid sick days and vacation.

Now, I understand that employers don’t hire people so that they can give those workers time off from working. And I get that employers have businesses to keep going and growing. When workers aren’t . . . you know, working . . . that becomes a lot harder. I’ll further concede that a worker signs up for whatever polices his or her business might have in place. Regardless, in this humble blogger’s opinion, “stingy” would be an apt word to describe our collective approach to allowing for time off of work.

Whatever you think of how much paid time off someone should have from work, there are strong arguments to be made that that time off does employees and employers a great deal of good.

But even with the relatively small number of days off that many Americans enjoy, we’re lousy about actually using all of them. So the number of days off used can differ significantly from the number of days off offered.

All of this, to my mind, is a shame.

Check-in time

But the problem for many can be worse. Even when a person does take advantage of days off, he or she might never completely disconnect from work. I should know. I’m one of them.

I may not be example #1 of someone who’s found it increasingly difficult to completely disengage from work. But I’m much too far from the other end of the spectrum for my liking.

Allow me to elaborate. When I was an employee, I worked for employers with decent paid-days-off policies (by American standards). Now self-employed, I can take much more time off.

But in my last five or six years as an employee, I didn’t always take off all available paid days off. In most of those years, I forewent only a day or two. But in a few other years it was more. Since becoming self-employed, the number of days off I’ve taken hasn’t increased any.

The net effect hasn’t been too bad, because I essentially work part-time. But still, I could and should take more days off.

Here’s the rub, though. Even on my days off I usually check my work email on my phone. When I first started doing that years ago, I’d generally check once a day. The problem has gotten worse. Now I’ll sometimes check it several times a day. I generally don’t answer emails, and rarely (have to) do any work. But I still check in.

So, I’m not checked out.

Pullcrap

As I intimated in another of my posts, I’m not so devoted to my work that I’m trapped by it. Work always comes second to my personal and family obligations. Yet despite not feeling mentally trapped, I’ve still somehow allowed myself to feel mentally pulled.

I’m not sure whether Americans’ inability to take full advantage of time off is more because of feeling mentally trapped or mentally pulled, or both. If I were guessing, I’d say at least the former, and probably both. Regardless, the effect is the same.

So I know from whence I write. And I can say that for me, this problem is taking its toll and is a major contributor to the burn out that I mentioned that I’m feeling in my recent post, “My Why-FI.”

This is All. On. Me. I know that. But I haaaaaaaaaatttttttttte it. And notwithstanding my full recognition and understanding of the problem, I have had a terribly hard time changing my behavior.

I’m sure that many of the millions of Americans who don’t take advantage of all available days off, and/or like me struggle with completely unplugging, feel similarly.

Root nixty-nix

Enter FIRE.

I agree with many others who have said that many of the issues you have before reaching FIRE won’t and cannot disappear just because you’ve FIREd. But this problem I’m discussing here is one that I think can be resolved. At least I sure hope that it can, because my pursuit of FIRE is in no small measure focused directly on addressing it.

What I mean to do is eliminate the obligation to work, and there by the need to think about work on any “days off.” In other words, to nix the problem by pulling out by the roots.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, you dumb blogger guy! You can stop working any time you want!” And you’d be right. As my own boss, and previously as an at-will employee, that option is, and has always been, on the table. For me though, the financial security component was always the brick wall preventing that option even entering my head.

Now that financial security has become less of an issue, that brick wall is crumbling. So I’m confident that I can eliminate my mental problem by eliminating the circumstances directly giving rise to it. Maybe wishful thinking, but I have reason to believe that I’ll achieve my desired result.

I think others who experience the same challenges as me—whether because of feeling trapped, pulled, or both—would do well to do the same.

And in the end . . .

Dear Reader, maybe you’re mentally trapped by work. Or, like me, mentally pulled by it. FIREing can help both of us as I’ve explained. But even if you’re neither trapped nor pulled and are able to fully enjoy your days off, FIREing is 100% worth it so that you can avoid post-days-off negative feelings that so may people experience.