Maybe You Just Need To Take a Nap Right Now
We work (almost) more than ever before. It’s time to take it easy.
It’s been less than 100 years since Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, famously instituted an eight-hour-a-day, five-day workweek — the 9–5 model — for his assembly line workers.
This was actually a groundbreaking change at the time.
After all, following the Industrial Revolution, workers in manufacturing often worked a six-day week for a total of 60 to 90 hours. It wasn’t until labour union groups started advocating for better working conditions around the mid-19th century that things began to change, slowly.
But with the introduction of the 9-to-5 working day by Ford — which wasn’t exactly driven by concern for the wellbeing of his workers, as it’s sometimes assumed — more large companies picked it up and, well, here we are today.
To some, the conclusion of that story is that we should be grateful for our current 40-hour workweeks and accept them as a pretty sweet deal by historical standards. We aren’t working 14 or 16-hour workdays and falling into whirring machines of heavy industry because of sheer exhaustion anymore, so what else could possibly be there to complain about?
Well, the average hours worked today are a dramatic improvement if you consider the last 150 years or so, but they are by no means the standard throughout all human history. Even the fact that we mostly work all year round would have many of our ancestors spit out a piece of stewed meat and gasp in disbelief.
The reality is, we’re still in the era of overwork.
It just underwent a rebrand to make us feel like we aren’t.
For as long as I can remember, around this time of year — the end of winter, the beginning of spring — my Polish mother would say she’s drained, then look at the calendar and go, yup, it makes sense.
‘Spring solstice’ in my native language is essentially synonymous with a state of low energy and weariness.
In Slavic pagan tradition, it also marks the beginning of the year, which we celebrate by drowning a doll dubbed Marzanna or Morana, a goddess of death and winter. And while the latter is for hibernation and filling up your pantry with pickled goods and homemade liqueurs, early spring is the slow revival. You’re supposed to feel tired and weakened and take plenty of rest to muster strength for the coming year.
I also feel tired now, like a bear that just woke up from months of deep slumber. Perhaps that’s just the years of hearing my mother complain about her tiredness, or perhaps it’s indeed a seasonal thing. Many animals have a seasonal body clock, so why would humans be any different?
For peasants in pre-industrial societies, winter was a time of slowing down, too, as weather conditions made agricultural labour difficult. Sure, they had things to do — like taking care of the farm animals, fertilising the fields, or pruning trees — but overall, they worked far less during that time than during the ploughing and harvesting season.
But even the idea that they did back-breaking labour non-stop, from dawn till dusk (which is sixteen hours in summer), once winter was over doesn’t hold water. According to research by economist Juliet B. Schor, work patterns in medieval times were decidedly more relaxed. (And included a customary afternoon nap.) In 13th-century England, for instance, Shor found that whole peasant families didn’t put in more than a total of 150 days per year on their land. Available evidence also suggests that even pre-industrial servile labourers and miners worked only 180 days a year, for around 28 hours a week.
As Shor notes in her book, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure:
The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure.
Going further back, people in hunter-gatherer societies likely worked much less than modern Western workers, too. According to anthropologist James Suzman, who spent decades researching African hunter-gatherer groups like Ju/’ hoansi, our hunter-gatherer ancestors rarely had to work more than 15 hours per week and had plenty of time and energy to devote to leisure. And they ‘almost certainly did not endure nasty, brutish and short lives,’ Suzman adds.
Many other anthropologists made similar observations, including Marshall Sahlins. What’s more, Sahlins’ study of the !Kung hunter-gatherer society suggests that they didn’t even have an explicit distinction between work and non-work.
Clearly, if you consider a much broader sweep of history, the period we’re living in now still seems more of an exception than the norm.
And so it’s not much of a consolation to say, well, at least we’re not working as much as we did during the 19th century when humans worked more than at any other point in history, isn’t it?
For many people, only having to work 40-hour workweeks at one job would be a dream come true. While the average working hours around the world fall between 40 and 44, these numbers are often higher among working Millenials and Gen Z — dubbed the ‘lazy’ generations. According to 2020 global estimates by ManpowerGroup, 73% of Millenials work more than 40 hours per week, one-fourth work more than 50 hours, and nearly one-third have two or more jobs.
And that’s not exactly because we all want to be busier than medieval peasants during harvest season.
I did 10–12 hours workdays for nearly four years at my first job here, in London, on top of frequently working weekends. That was simply the culture of the company I worked at, and these were the expectations: put in the long hours or be fired. But I’d hardly say I’m an exception among my peers.
Despite the majority of the population in Western countries working in the service economy — which you’d think shouldn’t be as time-consuming as agricultural labour — and, perhaps more importantly, despite all the technological advancements made in the last few decades, which were supposed to make us more productive more than ever, we work a lot.
Also, we don’t really have a period of slowing down. Many of us don’t take sick or vacation days because of job insecurity. (And even when we do, we feel guilty or ashamed about it.) Plus, most don’t have a stay-at-home partner who does all the domestic chores, as some workers still did before and shortly after the introduction of the 9-to-5 model.
If you’re a luck-ish unmarried, childfree or childless young person today who works 45 hours at one job and then does 15 hours of housework a week — the average for women is 17, while for men is 13 — you’re looking at the total of 60 hours of labour, which is already most of your waking time. If you add work commute and having kids to the equation, well, you might be able to have a couple of hours of leisure time here and there.
It’s really no wonder why trends like ‘quiet quitting,’ ‘lazy girl job’, or ‘soft life’ have emerged in the last few years. We are sick and tired of having to choose work over life, day after day and year after year, until one day we’ll (maybe) get to retire.
Even free time is treated as fair game by some employers thanks to the by-product of all those technological advancements, the ‘always-on’ culture. And if you’re unwilling to turn yourself into a shareholder profit-maximising robot, you’re unfit for this world, apparently. Or don’t deserve to earn a living wage.
Just the other day, I came across a video of Airbnb founder Brian Chesky saying he asked his company’s first 300 employees the same interview question: ‘If you had a year left to live, would you take this job? ‘
But hey — it could be much worse, right?
At least today, unlike in the industrial era, you can wear your exploitation as a badge of honour.
Perhaps the worst part is that none of that hard work and sacrifice guarantees stability, security, or relative prosperity — at least not any more or in most countries on this planet.
And yes, working 40 or more hours week after week all year round while juggling all the responsibilities that come with surviving today — particularly if you’re also raising a family — without ever taking meaningful breaks is sacrificing your mind and your body.
Without rest, there’s no living.
You’re merely surviving.
And being in continuous survival mode, in turn, has been shown to cause chronic illness — like chronic pain, heart disease, diabetes and even some form of cancer. Unsurprisingly, there’s also been a surge in chronic illness in countries like the US, the UK and a few others where toxic work culture is still largely the norm.
The ‘soft life’ movement, the antidote to all this toxicity of the grind, which is all about veering away from stress and prioritising leisure, peace and meaningful relationships, is a move in the right direction, but it’s also essentially just… life. Or rather what life should be like. Anything else is unsustainable. And inhumane. But the fact that we need to add ‘soft’ and that the whole thing is sort of considered ‘revolutionary’ shows that we have indeed forgotten what life is all about.
And it doesn’t exactly help that some people actively shame others for trying to introduce ‘softness’ into their lives. There’s a whole genre of articles and opinion pieces devoted specifically to berating younger generations and trying to convince us that this is all ‘normal.’
The arguments for the stringently capitalist, 40 or more hours workweek are weak, though.
Every four-day workweek experiment so far has brought positive results, for instance. There’s also convincing evidence that controlling one’s own schedule, working from home, and taking frequent time off make us happier, healthier, and more productive.
Not to mention that the claim ‘it has always been this way’ doesn’t stand up to historical scrutiny.
Or common sense.
Taking it slow isn’t only good for humans.
It’s good for our planet, too, as it directly disrupts the capitalist status quo that continues pushing us closer and closer to our own destruction.
Still, just because this has been the norm for the past few centuries doesn’t mean we can’t reimagine a better world. We can, and we should.
But first, take note of nature slowly waking up around you.
And then, go take a nap.
If you had a year to live...would anyone choose to work any job? Such a dumb interview question that can only elicit one or two responses. Yes...because they desperately need the job and kiss arse or no...they're being truthful.
Thank you for another well researched and well written article! There is an attempt to make it illegal to contact employees after work hours. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/03/california-bill-right-disconnect/
I also would like to recommend my personal hero Tricia Hersey founder of the Nap Ministry. https://thenapministry.com/