“Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist” – Proverbs 23:4
One common theme in the articles I have written over the past two years has been the principle of hard work. Typically, if you commit to working diligently and consistently on an endeavor, you will achieve success. That is a principle that I believe is a commonality among many of the great entrepreneurs of our modern age. You will rarely find a person who has become successful in an endeavor that did not work long and hard. So hard work and success go hand-in-hand in my opinion.
With that said: all of life can’t be about how to make more money. Just as it is important to work hard, it is just as important to know when to stop working. I am a big believer in work-life balance. Much too often, we find ourselves in one of two ditches. Ditch #1 is that of laziness. We hate work so much that we avoid it like the plague. We will find any and every excuse not to work. If we do work, we give the bare minimum to avoid getting fired. Ditch #2 is that of workaholism. Because we are obsessed with making as much money as possible, we will work as long as we think is necessary to become rich. We will fill up our schedule with different business ventures all in the hopes of striking it big and becoming wealthy. We will work as much overtime as possible in order to make as much money as possible. Both of these ditches must be avoided.
One of my favorite shows growing up was the 90’s sitcom “Family Matters”, and there was an episode of the show that highlights the negative impact of being a workaholic. In this episode, Steve Urkel invents a time machine and he, along with Carl Winslow, travel back in time to the year 1976. That was the year that Carl and his wife Harriet moved into their home. While there, Carl sneakily leaves a note with some investment recommendations for his past self to make. When Carl and Steve return to the present, they discover that Carl is now the richest person in the world. Initially Carl is thrilled at how his life turned out…until he discovers what he lost. When he arrives at his mansion, his wife hands him divorce papers. Not only that, but because he was so busy doing business deals, he and Harriet never had any children. So, there was no Eddie and Laura Winslow in this new reality. While Carl gained billions of dollars through being a workaholic, he lost his entire family.
There has never been a person on his deathbed that wished they had spent more hours in the office. The regret that you often hear is that they didn’t spend enough time with their family. The reality is that if you devote your entire life to the pursuit of wealth, you will gain wealth, but you’ll lose everything else that matters. In Japanese culture, because many fathers tend to put in a lot of hours working, they created a word “karoshi” which means death by overwork. It is not an exaggeration to say that overworking yourself is not only bad for your family, but also your health.
The bottom line is that it is important to work hard if you want to be successful. In that pursuit, there may be brief seasons where you might have to work long hours. But your entire life can’t be just about work. It is important to make a living, but don’t be consumed by the desire to become rich. In the end, what you’ll gain from overworking yourself is not worth what you’ll lose.