This week Caesar gave me a scare with his health. Words like “cancer” and “kidney failure” were mentioned, and my mind immediately thought about my dog dying way before I was prepared. As the weekend neared, Caesar’s antibiotics began to really kick in and his health improved greatly. But as the fear of my dog dying faded, I started asking myself two major questions – “Am I living life fully right now?” and “If Caesar died today, would I have regrets?” While I have taken him on trips with me and given him a better life than most dogs I know, the answer was overwhelmingly “no” to question one and “yes” to question two. Most days I feel like I’m going through the motions of life, and I know, if they died today, I would regret not giving Caesar and Jeter more of my time.
I often reflect on the idea that we overwork ourselves for jobs that would replace us in less than a week if we fell over dead. So many of us work so hard for employers who don’t truly care for our well-being. Personally, when I’m not at school, I feel like I live at my job. As a journalist, I am never really “off.” Even on the weekends I find myself checking my emails constantly or searching social media to make sure I’m not missing something. I often lie awake at night worrying about my job. Nearly daily I find myself wishing I could quit to pursue my dreams. Friday, I had a conversation with one of my coworkers about how we both feel so tired after we leave that we have little will to work on things at home. For me, I feel so worn out mentally somedays that I feel like I don’t have time for my personal goals.
Maybe you’ve heard the quote, “Don’t work 8 hours for a company then go home and not work on your own goals. You’re not tired, you’re uninspired.” I feel that so hard.
If you feel like this, know that you are not alone. According to the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, “workplace stress causes 120,000 deaths and results in nearly $190 billion in health care costs each year.” If we are literally killing ourselves for our jobs, shouldn’t we at least make sure it’s work worth dying for?
As we drown in our poor mental health, we should ask ourselves, “How many times has my employer asked about my mental health or even just asked how I am doing?” If you are like me, I could have half my hand cut off and still have more fingers than I need to count.
Don’t get me wrong, I care deeply about my work. I care about writing much more, though, which is why I started this blog. I want to write; it doesn’t really make a difference to me where or for who. I love my job because I love to write, not for any other reason.
Caesar and Jeter are far more important to me than work or school. I want to make sure when they are gone, I have no regrets about the amount of time I got to spend with them. For a dog, their whole life is about how much time they can spend with us; I don’t want them to feel like they spent more time waiting on me to get home than they did physically with me. In just under two weeks, I will take Caesar to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I have wanted to share this experience with him for years. I’m slowly teaching myself to spend the days I do have off in the moment with them, and not on my phone checking my emails. I’m starting to think, however, that the weekends are not enough.
No one ever gets to the end of their life and says, “Wow, I wish I would have worked more.”