Why is everybody so concerned about work-life balance?
According to one urban legend, based on 1950s pop psychology*, workaholics are greedy and selfish people who are bound to die from a heart attack.
Not really. As the great David Ogilvy once said: "Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work." This is especially true if your work is meaningful.
Most of the studies on the harmful effects of excessive work rely on subjective evaluations of work "overload." They fail to disentangle respondents' beliefs and emotions about work. If something bores you, it will surely seem tedious. When you hate your job, you will register any amount of work as excessive — it's like forcing someone to eat a big plate of food they dislike, then asking if they had enough of it.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Embrace Work-Life Imbalance - Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic - Harvard Business Review
