Overwork: the Sickening Norm
Four hours of sleep, early mornings, and late nights. Struggling to keep yourself functioning, barely handling the workload. From middle school all the way to the very day that a person retires, this is often their reality. Work nonstop and overload yourself with it. That’s the only way you’re useful, after all. This is the recurring message sent to everyone in America: that overworking yourself is the only true way to function in this society. We’re all victims of it, from my classmates who fall asleep in class to the adults who work nine-to-five jobs and still never get paid enough. Why is it that our capitalist society makes overwork the only way to live a seemingly successful life?
From the day we step into school to the day we retire, we never get enough time to rest. Consider how common it is to walk into a classroom and hear a student miserably sniffling and hacking their lungs out. These kids should be at home, resting. Instead, they’re either forced by their parents or themselves to go to school. Why? Because they’ll miss too much if they’re gone. I can’t even count how many times I’ve forced myself back to school when I felt awful, simply because I was terrified of all the make-up work I would be scrambling to finish on top of my regular work. There is inadequate support for missing school, and it’s seen as though it’s a crime. When we were in elementary school, we were awarded gold stars when we didn’t miss school, as if the very idea of getting sick and missing school is wrong. To get sick is a normal, human thing. It shouldn’t be treated like a disaster and students shouldn’t be showing up to school when they’re sick because they have to work. School should be able to wait. This same idea is reflected in the work world-- there’s a limited amount of paid sick days one has, and once you’ve used those days, that’s all you get. Why is that? You’d think that if workers were so “valuable,” they’d be given the time to recuperate to do their work properly.
Outside of not being able to get proper rest when one is sick, think of the hours-- both school and work hours. Kids are at school from 8 to 3, sitting in classes for hours on end, and then, once school ends at 3, only a small fraction of students go straight home. The rest are kept on campus, either for an obscene amount of extracurriculars or because their parents have work. Some students get home as late as 7 or 8. Teens are pulling 12 hour days and we’ve accepted this to be “normal” when nothing about those hours is normal or right. Teachers always tell kids to “go outside!” or “balance your life!” How can one balance their life when there’s not a life outside of school to balance? Students come home exhausted, wake up exhausted, and go to school the next day exhausted. It’s a never-ending cycle of extreme hours, piles of homework, and extracurriculars on top-- because, apparently, if you’re not working yourself to the bone with AP classes and multiple extracurriculars, you’re essentially a failure. These back-breaking hours lead into adulthood, with adults pushing themselves to work long hours for improper compensation, just to keep their jobs and some form of livelihood.
Capitalism is built to overwork the members of our society and always leaves them scrambling to live a fruitful life. It feels as though we’re all mice on a wheel-- running as fast as we can but never truly getting anywhere. Society should change its outlook on health and human well-being, so people can prioritize their wellbeing and live healthy lives without continuing to push themselves to the point of no return, simply for work or school. School and work should never-- never!-- be prioritized over one's health, livelihood, and happiness.
