Scholars
do research studies about why human beings work. From the psychological point
of view, I am trying to find a way to heal the stress and wounds generated in
psychology due to work, rather than analyzing the reasons for working. Work has
an important value for PIRs (person in relationships) when doing
self-actualization. You have covered the four categories
previously: the case of working without thoughts, the case of working even
though you don't want, the case of working as the means for purpose and goal,
and the case of working because of immersing yourself with fun in work. I put
'work addiction' aside because I consider it as the case of working with a
psychological disorder.
Work
addiction is a psychological disorder just like other general kinds of
addiction. Thus, operations of mind and psychology of people who are addicted
to alcohol, gambling, drug, exercise, the Internet, games, etc. need to be
considered when analyzing the mind and psychology of workaholic. In other
words, the mind operation of a workaholic is the same as that of other kinds of
addiction. So, it is important to understand first what addiction is.
In cases of immersing oneself in work
and having an excessive amount of work might be considered as workaholism, but
it is different from work addiction occurred by operations of stress and
wounds. Immersing oneself excessively in work is the same, but addiction is a
psychological disorder caused by compulsions and anxieties due to stress and
wounds. So, a person cannot be judged as a workaholic just because he or she
enjoys work and works a lot.
The core of the work addiction is
compulsions being operated by stress and wounds about the work. When stress and
wounds are generated, compulsions operate to bail out of the stress and wounds;
work must be done to get away from the stress and wounds. One might and might not recognize that something is
wrong with him or her, but it is impossible to control oneself by his or her
own will even if he/she knows that.
People tend to misunderstand work
addiction as working excessively all night up, but working a lot isn't actually
work addiction. It is just excessive working or immersing oneself excessively
in work because he or she like the work. It can't be work addiction. If it is
work addiction, the object of compulsion and that of relieving the compulsion is
the same, which is work. Like this, having compulsions on a specific object is
called addiction.
Thus, work addiction has the
compulsion about work; exercise addiction has the compulsion about exercise;
alcohol addiction has the compulsion about alcohol. In the case of having an
exercise addiction, a person suffers in the agony of stress and wounds that are
not endurable if he or she cannot do exercise. Being unable to do any other
things, this person suffers from compulsion and feels anxiousness. This person
must do exercise in order to get away from the compulsion and have his or her
psychology stabilized. If the anxiousness lasts without getting away from the
compulsion, phenomena like suffocating, and illness anxiety disorder occur,
making oneself not being able to endure them; he or she ends up with exercising
by fair means or foul to get away from the compulsion. Like
this, addiction is having the object of compulsion and the object of overcoming
the compulsion the same.
The symptom of addiction doesn't
always occur on a daily basis. The time and number of occurrences of the
symptom are not the important matter. Regardless of the cycle, once compulsion
about a certain object is formed, the object must be carried out in order to be
free from the compulsion.
This kind of addiction isn't really
recognized well because it appears as either male's passion or female's love. Just
for reference, passion and love do not generate stress but heal the stress and
wounds. On the contrary, addiction forms compulsions about a certain object,
making a person feel difficult and have wounds and stress operated. At this
moment, the person with an addiction cannot do anything else but looks for the
object he or she is addicted to in order to get away from the compulsion. This
kind of addiction occurs commonly in our daily life.
For example, a person addicted to
exercise cannot do anything ever since the moment he or she perceives any
information related to exercise at his or her workplace even if he or she is
supposed to work. The stress that is strong enough to stop everything related
to a daily life is generated. Also, a person addicted
to work has compulsions with thoughts like 'I should get to sleep early, so I
can get back to work early tomorrow' when he or she sees broadcasting related
to work. It is because of various problems or ideas related to work that come
to his or her mind so suddenly. This person cannot control himself or herself.
The social phenomenon of 'hurry up' in
Korea shows that we are suffering from compulsions that much. This social phenomenon is caused by sudden changes in Korea. People are suffering
from compulsions that they must to do something, work, go to college and have
jobs. If not, they think they cannot survive in this society without economic
values. This is not a matter of right or wrong but just interpreted from a
psychological point of view.
They see Korea as 'passionate and
dynamic hell' and other countries with good social welfare as 'gloomy heaven
with neither passion nor fun.' As such sentences
can indicate a person with or without having compulsions. Fun and passion are
more dynamically intense as compulsion and addiction become stronger. However,
it means that there is no fun and passion without compulsions. In cases of compulsive
hoarding, it is the same as treasuring a pile of trash. It is a psychological
disorder of compiling trash and withstanding to discard trash because a person
has a compulsive thought that it might be useful sometime. Hence, trash is the
object of addiction in compulsive hoarding. For instance, hygiene is the object
of addiction in germaphobes. Getting addicted to human
relationships between males and females is called relationship compulsion,
relationship addiction in other words. These kinds of compulsions are spread
widely throughout the entire society; these are very typical phenomena that are
appeared in addiction.
When
a compulsion is formed to a certain object and when the compulsion is relieved
through the same object, it is called an addiction. Because
of this, addiction makes you suffer in difficulties of the mind if compulsion
is not removed because it is followed by very strong stress and wounds; when
the compulsion is relieved, you feel very comfortable and happy. So, you end up
deeply immersing yourself in the process of releasing the compulsion. Some of
you recognize it as if you immerse yourself in passion or love, but make sure
clearly understand that it is only releasing the compulsion.
If
a woman has obsessive-compulsive feelings about a relationship with a man,
compulsions are formed when the man comes to her mind or any information
related to the man is perceived; she
becomes able to do nothing until she feels comfortable and happy after
relieving the compulsions through having phone calls, text messaging, etc. with
him. This is called either a distorted attachment relationship or
obsession. It is a type of compulsion and relationship addiction. So, if this
kind of compulsion is formed, it is not controlled due to the operations of
strong stress.
A person
with a compulsion due to work addiction gets anxieties without being able to do
anything for daily life if he or she cannot do his or her works along with
strong stress. This person can relieve the compulsion
and become comfortable, fun, and happy only by doing works. This work addiction
might be perceived as if it allows a person to be able to do self-actualization
by pursuing values of economics, human relationships, and social activities,
but is it not true. The work is the object of compulsion and of releasing the
compulsion; work addiction is a psychological disorder.
Work
addiction generates stress and wounds due to the compulsion of the mind as
other various addictions do; this compulsion can only be relieved by doing
work. When releasing the compulsion, the work addict damages him, herself, or
others by causing stress and wounds. Addiction might seem as if immersing
oneself to a specific object just like male's passion and female's love;
however, passion and love heal oneself or the other whereas addiction damages
oneself or the other.
Accordingly, it will be easier to understand and to
categorize if the addiction harms oneself or oneself with others. When looking at people with addiction, someone only
damages his or her body and mind, and someone damages not only himself or
herself but also others.
Let's
look into alcohol addiction as an example of the kinds of addictions that
damage both self and others. It could be perceived as a type of addictions that
only damage oneself. However, in many cases, an alcohol addict not only damages
his or her body and mind, but also causes serious problems to his or her
spouse, children, and other people in the human relationships. This alcoholic
person has formed compulsions about alcohol, causing powerful stress and
wounds, and faces anxieties and nervousness, having psychological difficulties
and agony. This person must drink alcohol somehow because he or she cannot relieve
the compulsion unless drinking alcohol; in this process, surrounding people
suffer from difficulties caused by this person. By drinking alcohol, the
compulsion is relieved, allowing this person to have comfort and happiness.
When
talking about addiction, we use the word 'habitual' a lot. However, habitual
alcohol drinking and alcohol addiction are different. Habitual
alcohol drinking is habitually drinking almost every day, but it is not
followed by either anxieties or powerful stress due to compulsion about
drinking alcohol. If a person can hold himself from drinking alcohol for
tomorrow's schedule, he is not addicted to alcohol. The reason we use the terms
'habitual alcohol drinking' is that it is highly potential to become alcohol
addiction when compulsion is formed.
In
the case of gambling addiction, a person tries to make some money by gambling
at first. If this person makes profits through gambling, he or she's high
potential to become a gambler because it feels great when there is a sudden,
unexpected monetary profit, and it brings the effect of an increase in economic
value. If a person gambles to feel the mood of an increase in this economic
value, this person becomes addicted to gambling. Gambling addiction occurs when
a person tries to feel the mood of an increase in economic value by earning
money in a short period of time rather than having the purpose of making
profits. Due to this, a person addicted to gambling wants to feel the mood of
the great increase in economic value if he or she makes a small profit. Thus,
when information related to economic values is perceived, compulsions about
gambling are formed, increasing the anxieties and nervousness, and powerful
stress and wounds are generated. In order to relieve the compulsions, this
person must gamble; because of this action, not only economic destruction but
also negative impacts on other people economically occur, generating serious
problems for both.
Like this, there are many kinds of
addictions that damage not only oneself, but also others, such as alcohol
addiction, gambling addiction, drug addiction, sex addiction, relationship
addiction, etc.
Next
is about kinds of addictions that only damage oneself. The representative
example is work addiction. If a person is addicted to work, his or her spouse
and family members welcome this work addiction because of the increase in
economic values. They think the work addict works hard and tries his or her
best for them. This person addicted to work has, in fact, a psychological
disorder due to compulsion and relieve about work but does not either harm or
damage others. Economic values can increase, but the values of human
relationships might be destroyed, and social activities disappear. Even though
problems might occur in the values of human relationships or social activities,
the person addicted to work does not damage others if economic values are
formed by work addiction. Family members might turn away from this
person if he or she cannot make economic values.
Also, even in the case of exercise
addiction, most people just work out hard, a little bit excessively in some
cases. So, others do not perceive that they are being damaged by the exercise
addicts. Like this, exercise addiction does not give any negative perception to
the other or others even if physical and psychological problems have occurred
to this exercise addict. People in close relationships with this person only
feel a little bit uncomfortable with this issue, which makes the exercise
addict does not perceive that he or she is addicted to exercise. In many cases,
we perceive a work addict as a person working very hard and an exercise addict
as a person. In other words, they are doing things for themselves.
These people have serious
psychological disorders because they get powerful stress if they cannot relieve
the compulsions that they have formed to the things they are addicted to. They
do not recognize that their minds are being damaged. It is the same for people
addicted to games, the Internet, smartphones, etc. They are just harming
themselves.
Like
work addiction and exercise addiction, the kind of addiction that is perceived
as something beneficial to oneself tends to be acknowledged as living a
valuable life even though it actually damages the self. Strangely, the
psychological problem, work addiction especially, is acknowledged as living a
valuable life.
The
reason why work addiction being acknowledged as living a valuable life is that
it creates the values of life. Work allows us to make and have the values of
social activity, human relationships, and economics. We can be acknowledged by
others for living a valuable life and feel as if we have been successful in
self-actualization. Thus, people around us are generous about work addiction. In
the case of exercise addiction, same as work addiction, people think it isn't a
problem because exercising is good for health. The addicts do not know that
they actually have psychological disorders and that they have psychological
problems of losing values of human relationships such as family, friends,
acquaintances, etc. by limiting the value of human relationships into the value
of human relationships related to only work.
On the other hand, addictions like
game addiction, internet addiction, smartphone addiction are different. It is
because there are no values for life. People perceive these kinds of addictions
are serious problems because they think there are no values of social
activities, human relationships, and economics. Well, of course, a game addict
can become a pro-gamer, and an internet addict can become an expert on the internet.
A smartphone addict can become an expert on smartphones as well. It would be
great if they can actually become professionals on the subject they are
addicted to; however, chances are very remote, which is the reason why we
perceive this kind of addictions as bad. They also think these additions cause
losing the values of life. So, they want to stop these addictions, try to treat
them, and keep talking about how serious these problems are. Simply saying,
they understand that these addictions are just a waste of time and cause the
seriousness as psychological disorders. This kind of addictions does not damage
others.
Therefore, we must judge whether to
get treatment or not when categorizing addictions by analyzing whether the
addictions damage only the self or damage the self and others as well. In the
case of work addiction that only damages the self, the addict must know how to
treat the self and prevent the self from the addiction accurately since it builds
values of life. However, work addiction is very rarely being
studied because people judge it is valuable for life. But when looking at this
problem from an individual's psychological view, it is highly potential to
cause a bigger problem. It is because the work addiction could become another
addiction since mind operations of addictions are the same. For example, a work
addict becomes a gambling addict if the person knows the fun of gambling, an
alcohol addict if he or she feels the fun of drinking alcohol, and a sex addict
if the person feels the fun of having sex. This person could also become a
relationship addict if he or she feels the fun of having human relationships. Since
addiction is having the same object of compulsion and of relieving compulsion,
addiction can be changed into another kind if the object is changed. This is
why addiction is very dangerous.
Due to this, if a person feels values
of life (social values, economic values, and values of human relationships)
from being addicted to work, this person could be easily addicted to gambling,
drugs, sex, human relationship, etc. later on. Well,
of course, the person might be confident that he or she can get away from the
pleasure after enjoying the fun for a while; however, this person is in the
state that the operations of compulsion and of relieving the compulsion cannot
be controlled if he or she is already addicted to something. Therefore, it is a
matter of time that addiction that damages only oneself changing to addiction
that damages not only the self but also others; it is very difficult to be
recovered back to the original state.
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