My routine Sunday at home is sleeping around in my bed and watching stupid shows on Netflix. On the other hand, my husband prefers to sit on the couch in the living room and do pending / important / critical work on his laptop (because my TV is disturbing for him so he prefers not to work in bedroom). I love my work and I give it all in from Monday – Friday, but weekends are when I really take a break and not check my work that regularly. On the other hand, all days of the week are same for my husband and he continues to do the same each day. It’s like if you take away his laptop or phone and make him sit without doing any work, he will go in panic mode and probably have a heart attack. Some people die of work overload, he will probably die of relaxation.

Deeper analysis (i.e. living with him for almost 9 years) made me think that his workaholism is not because he finds work intrinsically pleasurable, he is driven to work because he feels the “need to keep working” all the time. The way his eyes twinkle when he works is not even close to the feeling he experiences while orgasm. I guess he would have better sex with his phone (if that was physically possible) than me. For him things like “sleep more”, “party hard”, “relax more” – all equate to “work more”, “work hard” and “work more”.

While “Monday Blues” might be true for many people, for him (and all other workaholism addicts) Monday is nothing but happiness and probably the best day of the week. Its not just him, I have a friend who is even busier. I messaged him one day and he replies back after 4 days saying, “sorry I have been really busy lately”. This is how our conversation went (which was very short btw):

Me: But replying literally takes 1 minute

He: Yes it does, but then when you reply conversation starts and I don’t have time to engage in a long conversation right now, I’m too busy.

Me: If you are so busy that you don’t even have time to talk to a friend, how do you even unwind the stress.

He: Are you crazy? Who would want to do anything apart from work and waste time on other frivolous meaningless things

I personally think, Workaholism is not a disease like “Alcoholism” or “OCD”. It’s a personality trait that keeps growing and becoming stronger like cancer. My husband has become rich by working non-stop and I have come to realize that he feels that if ever he stops working he will become poor. So he is circling in the endless loop of work-money-work vicious cycle. Poor people have it sorted, they work as much as their physical capacity permits and then go to sleep. High income people in today’s age have to work with their minds and that part of the body never gets tired, the more you feed the brain, the hungrier it becomes and so these rich workaholics never stop, keep feeding the brain with lots of work till the brain draws a blur line between work and leisure and eventually merges it in one.