Is it worth it
Let me work it
I put my thing down
Flip it and reverse it
- Missy Elliot, Work It
Some time ago, I was asked to co-facilitate a Wellness Retreat. A foundation offered this opportunity to a group of their grantees — all leaders from local grassroots organizations. The focus was on cultivating well-being, preventing burnout and sustaining impact. Most of 75+ leaders who came were exhausted and looking forward to time for rest and soaking up the beautiful surroundings. And, yet, even in a two-day retreat focused on rejuvenation, many of them still felt pressured to check into their workplaces, respond to emails, take meetings and phone calls. In other words, they still had work to do.
In my two days of supporting them, in which I facilitated four workshops and eight one-on-one coaching sessions (I know, I know, I get the irony of doing so much, then and now), this insight drilled into me: It’s not just the amount and frequency of work that people are asked to do — it’s that their worth is being hijacked by their work.
For social justice, environmental, education, health, law, arts, and other kinds of changemakers, I think the story goes something like this: “There are big problems in my community and/or in this world. I have been given the tools/ knowledge/ life experiences/ opportunities to help address them. I must share all I have, and all I am, to my maximum capacity. Any moment that I am not doing something, then I am not contributing to the solutions for these massive challenges. I don’t deserve to rest or play, because the issues are too big. If I stop, what will happen? I’m not out for the money. I am driven by a bigger motivation. I need to keep doing because that’s what counts, that’s what makes a difference. Indeed, my value in this world is directly derived from how much I work. If I am work-less, then I am worth-less.”
(Phew. Writing that all out, I need to take a breath. Feel free to join me.)
I have been caught in that maelstrom myself, the whirlpool of productivity threatening to drown me, body and spirit. Many times, I have felt the over-powering need to do, to keep going, to push on, past my limits. I believe I learned this from my mother, from the immigrant community I grew up in, from the hidden and not-so-hidden curriculum in school and college, from the martyrdom endemic to social change work. I remember one year, when 17 YES! Jams were scheduled to happen, a series of afflictions hit me: my back went out so I couldn’t walk; I had hemorrhoids, so I couldn’t sit, and migraines made it difficult to do anything. And still, there were always more emails to answer, more teams to nurture, more programs to develop, more money to raise, more networks to build, more transformation to make possible. More. That ceaseless, brutal clarion call.
So, I don’t know if Missy Elliot intended it this way, but there is something about her song ‘Work It’ that is coming up for me since being at that retreat. Could I ‘put my thing down, flip it and reverse it’ — around my own and this culture’s orientation around work? Am I being dramatic when I say that productivity is killing community and us? Hear me out, and then you decide.
At the Wellness Retreat, so many folks offered examples of how they were caught up in the thrall. One person shared that they were addicted to achievement — going hard to grow their organization as fast as possible — until long Covid made them crash. Only on a six-month sickbed could they begin to recognize how their addiction was destroying their mental and physical health and their relationships. Another person was working a full-time job with an organization, a part-time weekend hustle, and starting a graduate program that he wanted to finish with his cohort in two years. Yet, even just contemplating that he could prioritize and/or let something go was so hard for him. We talked about what it might look like to give his 70%, instead of burning out at 120% all the time. Could that be (good) enough? His inner critic and story about self-worth was caught up in it all, and the majority of our coaching session focused on if/how could he generate a more generous and compassionate narrative for himself.
There were other examples. A woman shared how had been given a promotion — which, in practice, really meant that she had to keep all the duties of her current job plus add in a bunch of new responsibilities. Though she could see that anyone else would reasonably deserve time and space for transition and integration, it felt novel to advocate for that for herself. Another person hadn’t given themselves space to grieve a tragic loss and was using work and other engagements to bypass that grief. Of course, that was affecting their ability to be present with anything. When we could slow down and they could release some of their grief, and understand that they deserved to have time and space to feel their loss, did it feel like a shift would be possible. Still, another person had been putting so much energy outward for his whole career — giving all of himself to everyone else — that inviting him to ask himself about his own needs brought up a deluge of tears. His worth was entirely bound up with what he gave to others. He had never really considered that he could give himself — his heart, his soul, his body and being — some of his energy, much less that he deserved that kind of consideration.
As I reflect even more on these examples, I feel another common theme. It’s not just that work is hijacking our worth; it’s also hijacking our sense that we deserve time and space for the fullness of life. In other words, the human being is really losing out to the human doing.
I share these examples fully knowing that this mindset — and the ensuing behaviors and structures that support it — is no one person’s or organization’s fault. I could just say that it is because of capitalism, factory-schooling, and the more-more-more machine that dominates our world, but that doesn’t feel adequate to me either. What I felt over and over in these stories, with these lovely humans, was the profound entrenchment of productivity as THE way of being.
J. Krishnamurti said something like ‘being a well-adjusted person to an insane environment is not a sign of good health.’ What I feel is that the norm is so well-established that, even at a retreat focused on well-being, it took a good amount of slowing down to notice the more insidious effects of productivity. Work has become a kind of liability. I saw how this happens to me — and to so many other leaders as well. While thinking I am helping others, I end up hurting myself. In hurting myself, I am hurting community, too.
When work takes over, when being productive is what matters most, not only am I denying the fullness of my/our well-being and humanity, but also I/we are making lopsided the webs of reciprocity, sharing, and interdependence. Sometimes, I and others get so addicted to giving that I/we resist receiving — which throws communal systems in whack. Like healthy ecosystems, flow is essential. Blocking the flow — freezing or getting stuck predominantly in a worker/giver role — creates maladjustments in the system. Obviously, it leads to overwhelm and burnout. And, it also prevents others from digging into their own well of strength and power, because their giving has no place to go, nowhere to be received.
Maybe our world is suffering from the extremes: those who shut off their consideration of others and turn to violence, exploitation and greed in their work — and those whose compassion runs so deep that they become violent and exploitative to themselves, keeping the care firehose on at full throttle and drowning themselves and others in the process. Both ways, productivity can sabotage the lifeblood of community. When our doing is not balanced by the stillness of simply being, it chokes us out as individuals, just as it chokes out the Earth’s beings.
(Note: I am not speaking here about the the converse issue — when receiving is out of balance with giving. That tragedy is fairly well-documented and talked about — i.e., how systems are organized to reward personal hoarding, relational inequity and injustice, and disregard for the Earth. Both then and now, this care-less kind of productivity is/was a large part of the justification for genocide and slavery. You all probably know about that, so that is why I am focusing on the other end of productivity - the over-working that happens in the care sector.)
Can we put the thing down, flip it and reverse it?
Many years ago, I remember reading the words of natural farming advocate, Masanobu Fukuoka who said that “the most radical thing we can do is to do nothing.” In his book, One-Straw Revolution, Fukuoka was referring to our human approach to food-growing, and how we could dispense with input- and machinery-driven agriculture and instead attune and align with the natural systems of the Earth to receive the food we need. His ‘do-nothing farming’ is an inspiration to many in the agro-ecology, organic farming, and food sovereignty worlds. Fukuoka also connected this approach to other life systems: education, health, and economies. Instead of ‘working hard’, and then struggling to heal ourselves from this work, we could attune to nature’s cycles and co-create joyful lives and communities, rooted in deeper listening, alignment and flow.
To flip it and reverse it, for me, means inviting a few different inquiries. First, what if our worth was inherent, whether or not we ‘did’ anything to deserve worthiness? What if just existing is (good) enough? What would it look like to live our lives, and transform our systems, with this premise in mind?
As I heard Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, once say, “The answer to the question, ‘Who am I?’ would just be ‘I am’. No qualifiers needed.” When I think about the times and places where I have felt loved just for being, with nothing to prove and nothing to do, I have felt the most free. How could I (and we) divest worth from work and re-integrate worth with existence in every sphere of influence we have?
I have seen this happen in so many YES! Jams, when no one is ranked or measured by what they do, or how much they produce. In fact, most of us forget what we and others do, so caught up are we in the being-ness of each moment. So much ‘happens’ in a community like this, when we are not ‘working’ for it. The dishes get washed, the space gets cleaned, the grief get processing time, the visioning for the future comes alive, the networks get built through friendships and mutuality, the differences are explored, the common ground is found... It almost feels effortless, though what I think is happening is a different kind of effort. Less productivity, more human wholeness.
Another flip: what if play, instead of work, became the organizing principle for our communities and organizations? Feeling into joy and attuning to life-force energy, to play our way into healing and transformation? I am not saying to avoid or deny the challenges before us, and yet the heavy burden and ‘hard work’ with which we approach them may not actually be in service. Perhaps orienting ourselves to what is joyful in our worlds, and generating flow from there, could address our challenges in vital and life-nourishing ways.
Personally, I have felt what happens in myself when I shift towards playfulness. Because I am, in this moment, every age I ever was, being a ‘kid’ is something I call upon often. Then, I feel myself opening to mystery and curiosity, playing for learning, expressing myself freely and fully, engaging my wild imagination, creating fresh possibilities. Whenever I have other playmates joining me, the results are amazing. The collective gets into the playful and dynamic flow of giving and receiving — wow, it is extraordinary! Creativity is unleashed, truly healing and connective. The Secret Angels game at YES! Jams is one example of this, for sure. Another is how the whole circle gets into deep presence and listening together, each personal unmasking reverberating together into a rhythm of profound collective insights. We stop working to make the Jam; we just feel and be, and then we Jam.
That leads to another flip and reverse: how we are being transforms what we are doing. With truth, with love, with grief, with anger, with stories and re-stories, with presence — the group is not working; it is practicing being. When I am part of this lived experience, I feel I am calling forth the memory of an integrated human.
Indeed, integrating ‘being’ with ‘doing’ is one of my cornerstones for healing from capitalist economies, individualistic societies, and colonizing systems. Making places for rest, for celebration, for nothingness, and for work, too — that is the beauty of it all. The wholeness of life on our planet is interdependent with the wholeness of each of us, and that wholeness is made possible in relationship with others. Could I (and we) place wholeness, instead of work, at the heart of community?
I am so grateful for these beautiful non-profit leaders. Their stories are a reminder that our wellness matters. Not so we can get up and do too much again, but rather, so we can slow down and attune ourselves differently.
Can we work it? Is it worth it?
Yes. We are worth it.
I would love to hear your reflections on productivity and work. What do you want to put down, flip and reverse? Please share in the comments!
Yes! Another element of this that I've been thinking about recently is how a hyperfocus on productivity fosters comparison, competition, and ableism. I love the answer of being and playing
Another belter !!!
so good . so balanced . so concise . such an important message .
fingers crossed that they continue to come into the world .
btw , its not often that i can be so supportive of someone's writing , as i usually find some reason to get bored , or be in disagreement with , and most often to find it out of balance .
and love the song references too .
had any thoughts/feelings about my previous comments of video intros ?