Too Perfect Tuesday - Chap 9 - Chronic Leisure-Deprivation

Grand Canyon, North Rim - view of Cape Final.
Only four miles round trip but in the altitude it kicked my butt!

This post continues with CHRONIC LEISURE-DEPRIVATION from Chapter Nine.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If   you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

CHRONIC LEISURE-DEPRIVATION
By definition, workaholics don't have much free time, and chronic leisure-deprivation in itself may cause both psychological and physiological damage. Among the varied medical ailments attributed to overwork are fatigue, irritability, sleep disturbances, difficult in concentrating, depression, gastrointestinal malfunctions, coronary disease, hypertension, headaches, and muscle spasms.

<snip> Of course, burnout afflicts both those who are forced by circumstances into overworking, and those who are psychologically driven to work all the time. But of the two groups, overly driven obsessives are less likely to be able to enjoy whatever small amounts of leisure time they do have. <snip>

Other workaholics might cook elaborate dinners or take on complex home-improvement projects. Such laborious "play" can be truly pleasurable, but it's also very common for demand-sensitivity insidiously to drain the fun out of freely chosen leisure activities, making them feel like things that should or even must be done - in other words, like simply more work.

<snip> Caroline, the marketing director for a large clothing company, one day described her feelings about spending time with her baby and preschooler on the weekends.

"I love my children more than anything else in the world, and I don't have that much time with them during the week. Yet I find it very hard to spend completely unstructured time with them. Half the time I devise activities for us: we go somewhere or we undertake some project. About the only way I can force myself to just hang out with them and play spontaneously is by telling myself that it's my 'job' as a good mother to do that. And then it's okay. But it's sad that I can't fully surrender myself to their world."

<snip" Danielle was a perfectionistic workaholic who used her vacations to travel extensively; once on the road, she was a relentless sightseer. If she wasn't out the door and heading for a museum by nine in the morning, she became tense; should a vacation end before she had hit all the "things to see" in her guidebooks, she felt cheated and unhappy. These underlying tensions burst into full bloom when she started to travel with her boyfriend, Jack, who took the view that touring should be leavened with long mornings in bed and lazy breakfasts spent with coffee and local papers. <snip> to my surprise, I found that I actually sort of preferred this schedule. I began to think, 'Maybe there hasn't been something wrong with Jack. Maybe it's wrong with me.' And I just started to enjoy relaxing and hanging out more. Since then, I've made the conscious decision that I don't have to see everything while traveling. I've learned to prioritize and try to see just the best."

***

Mickey greeting guests at Disneyland Park
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No matter how minutely or how well you plan things - other "stuff" is going to happen, too. Sometimes much better "stuff" than you could have planned. I remember taking my son to Disneyland (a not particularly cheap day trip, FYI, if you've never visited) when he was about three. I wanted to schlep him to this ride and that ride, to get his picture taken with Mickey Mouse, and all that. And he wanted to sit on the benches behind Dumbo and watch through a gap in the hedges at "Casey Jr." the miniature circus train go by.

OMG, I wasn't getting my money's worth! Then I realized, I was, because the point of the trip was for us to have a good time together, for my child to have a good time at Disneyland, and he did. (Even though by the time he was ready to move on, after over an hour of train-watching, I was bored out of my gourd.)

A few years ago my ex and I went to the Grand Canyon, and yes, we had a fair amount plotted out in advance, because we had to (accommodations and so forth). But while I was there I picked up several books about the Grand Canyon, and I'm pretty sure Harvey Butchart, subject of Elias Butler & Tom Myers' book: Grand Obsession: Harvey Butchart and the Exploration of Grand Canyon, was at least somewhat OCPD. The man spent decades hiking and rafting in the Grand Canyon, virtually abandoning his family for weeks and months in order to cross another summit climb or canyon map off his list.

A self-described perfectionist, Harvey constantly assessed his hikes in terms of time and distance. Companions remember him as a man absolutely preoccupied with his watch - how long it took to hike from point a to point b, how this compared to the last time he had been across the same piece of ground, how long he could go before having to turn around, etc. <snip>

Susan Billingsley, a former river guide who first came to Grand Canyon in the 1960's, explained," I didn't do that much hiking with Harvey but I never particularly wanted to. Because he didn't hike, I don't think, for the beauty or anything else, he hiked to get to a certain point. You'd go look at his slides and they would be of the route, you know, there was never a beautiful slide of the Canyon, or who was with him, just - the route. He was so focused on that. He'd just get up in the morning and eat in his sleeping bag, and then get up and hike all day, and get in his sleeping bag and eat and go to sleep."

Grand Canyon. For myself, the constant beauty left me breathless and awestruck

Butchart, a mathematics professor, covered over 12,000 miles, made hundreds of maps and had a few books published on the subject. He was extremely competitive though he did enjoy exchanging letters with others who shared the same interest. It wasn't a spiritual experience, or about drinking in the sights. For him, it was all about plotting the hike or the trip, getting there as quickly and efficiently as possible, then turning around and getting back as quickly as possible, like Danielle from Too Perfect, who felt she had to hit every spot in the guidebook.

Maybe for some people, that is as good as it gets.

Have you been affected by leisure-deprivation?
Do you ever have a hard time just letting fun happen?

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - Work & Counterproductivity

This post continues with WORK AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVITY from Chapter Nine.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If   you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

WORK AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVITY
Workaholism causes problems in more than just the personal realm. "Keeping one's nose to the grindstone can hurt... business," concluded The Wall Street Journal in an article about workaholic entrepreneurs. "The protracted stress of fighting distraction, focusing intensely on dull details and working at protracted tasks fatigues the mind... The result: a rise in errors, troubles handling the public, more accidents, and declining workmanship."

As previously noted, perfectionists often have trouble starting projects, making decisions, and delegating tasks that could be better executed by others - all of which may easily do more damage than the good done during all those extra hours on the job. At the same time, the perfectionist's constant fault-finding is apt to dampen office morale.

<snip>...Fortune magazine described how a management consultant spent three days following one "hard-driving, bleary-eyed investment banker," recording in minute detail what the man did in the course of his interminable workdays. The consultant found that eighty percent of the Wall Streeter's activities turned out to be "busy work": redundant phone conversations, unnecessary meetings, time spent packing and unpacking his two bulging briefcases. All too often, no one looks at how effectively the workaholic is laboring, and yet that is ultimately much more important than the number of hours he spends on the job.

***

via Wikipedia

Churning. Not just for butter any more.

I worked with a young woman for a company once who was let go, and my boss described to me how once, when they were getting a delivery of new office furniture in, she told "Joan," to clear off her entire desk, empty the drawers, etc., so the old stuff could be removed, and the new installed. When she came back twenty minutes later, it appeared Joan had moved a stapler from one place to another, and nothing else.

That's churning - the mindless business of shuffling papers around, of re-reading the same email over and over, or trying to make sense of a spreadsheet with the same methods that aren't working.

At least when you churn butter, there's a delicious product at the end of it all.

Simply being at work, or sitting at a computer, does not necessarily mean you are being productive. (Trust me, I can offer plenty of personal experience on that one!)

I work with people who put in 12-14 hour days certain times of the year, but honestly? A lot of it is going over the same thing fruitlessly, over and over; or chatting on the phone for hours. They could probably get as much productive work done in ten. I've been in these round-robin e-mail loops where everyone is misunderstanding and it goes through six sends when the whole mess can be cleared up in 30 seconds of conference call.

(And as I type all this, I have firm plans to clean my desk at home - this week. Which plans I've had for several months, but still... my intention is NOT just to shove piles from one place to another.)

Is all your extra work really productive?
How much churning do you do?

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - Forgotten Friendships

This post continues with The Costs of Workaholism: The Poisoning of Personal Relationships - Forgotten Friendships from Chapter Nine.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If   you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

Forgotten Friendships
<snip> Maintaining a happy family life and developing close friendships contribute immeasurably to one's fulfillment in life. But it's amazing how many workaholics fail to see time spend on relationships as productive. They may pay lip service to the importance of their relationships, and indeed often truly value them. But at the same time their behavior betrays the hidden conviction that's it's somehow more important to put one's time and energy into work than into friends and family.

<snip>... he agreed to refrain from doing any work for one entire weekend. When I asked him how it went, he told me he'd been plagued by the feeling that he was wasting time, that he should have been accomplishing something.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Victoria and I spent the whole weekend just playing together. We went sailing on Saturday and went for a long hike on Sunday. We really relaxed."

"But you just said you didn't get anything accomplished."

"I meant work!" he laughed.

One reason workaholics like Larry may see "fun weekends" (and other leisure activities as being "wasted" time is that the good relationships, personal fulfillment, and increased self-awareness that spring from such time are not as concrete as the most common reward for long, hard work, namely money.

***

My ex often talked about how wonderful and valuable friendships were, but like the examples, totally begrudged spending time on them. He made so many excuses to stop playing guitar with his best friend that the friend eventually stopped inviting him. Likewise his own family; valuable as a concept, but invitations were frequently declined.

We entertained very little, because he had these rules... No one was to just drop in, ever. (I used to have friends dropping by all the time.) He couldn't stand the thought of having more than six people over at one time, including the two of us, even though we had a huge yard perfect for entertaining. So we could only invite four people, EVER.  Once, when an invited guest declined and I invited someone else in their place, another conniption fit, because I didn't ask him first if it was okay to invite this other friend, though it wasn't going over the "six or less" headcount.

English: Independence Day fireworks, San Diego. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He was jealous of events I went to with my friends, though most often, he refused to join me. Or, if he went, would throw a scene.  One particularly bad one was at a July 4 party. He felt one of my friends had snubbed him, and he wanted to leave, right that very minute. (I had driven, as I normally did, so he could drink.) Well, the fireworks were going on, right that very minute. I refused to leave until the fireworks were over, because I didn't think it was safe to drive distracted, and with people often setting off bootleg fireworks in the street. Suggested he go sit in the car if he wanted to pout, and I would be willing to leave about fifteen minutes after the fireworks ended.

So, he left, walking. (The friend of mine throwing the party lived in a suburb about 30 miles from our house.) This was before I knew about OCPD, so I spent an hour driving around looking for him. Called his best friend, who hadn't heard from him. Finally I went home, and eventually he showed up. He walked for a while and then I think he took a cab.

End result - I was much less eager to invite him on outings with my friends, and since he mostly declined invites from his... our social circle constricted considerably. I would advise anyone in a relationship with a workaholic and/or OCPD'r to not let your partner's excuses suffocate your social life. If anything, you need your friends even more.

Are your friendships not given space, time, or energy?
Is "just hanging out with friends" frowned upon?

Your thoughts?