Sunday journalling prompt

Moving beyond hard work

I used to have a guiding ethic behind my work, which I repeated to myself whenever I was flagging: I always want to be the hardest-working person in the room.

In many ways, that served me well, but only because it glanced across the mantra I really needed - I’ll get to that later. In plenty of other ways, it had me running around like the proverbial headless chicken, trying to prove to myself that I was always, always doing enough. Hello, setting up impossible expectations from others! Hello, burnout! 

I’ve written before that my schooling taught me that there was always more work to be done; that there was never a point when I could down tools in good conscience, knowing that I’d completed a day’s labour. But it also taught me something else: to perform being a Good Student. To make sure that everyone could see that I was devoutly industrious, going ever further in my mission to show people that I was putting in the hours.