Day 26 – Humanity

TW: this piece contains mentions of toxic fitness phrases

Day 26: “May I never sacrifice my health and wholeness on the altar of productivity; let my work be rooted in my full humanity and in grace.”

We have been inundated with mantras of productivity and results since we were young. You might even say it’s our daily bread. The sports and fitness industries have some doozies. “Just do it,” Nike commands us, even if we’re simply not in a position to “do it.” “No pain, no gain,” “pain is weakness leaving the body,” and “go hard or go home” (read: “you’re not doing it right if you’re not miserable, and giving up is for wusses”). Sometimes our accomplishments are weighed based on what we abstain from: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” (read: “anorexia is better than food.”)  But we must keep doing, must keep busy. “Keep your nose to the grindstone,” for those of us who have grown up with the 16th century version of how to go about one’s duties. Or Elon Musk tweeting “No one changes the world in 40 hours a week” (read: “you’re not accomplishing anything important if you’re not putting in more than you are required to do”). Yikes. Or there can be really problematic connotations behind well-meant proverbs like “bloom where you’re planted,” insinuating that everyone is capable of flourishing if they just try hard enough, regardless of the situations and environments they find themselves in.

I think many of us grew up with our parents teaching us to be hard workers: to persevere and keep going even when things are difficult. This is the American dream, right? That’s what success comes from, right? Work hard and succeed. Bootstraps. So much of my identity comes from this–from being the “responsible kid,” who’s had at least one job since I was 14 years old, and worked 35+ hours a week since I was a junior in high school.

My first year as a teacher at the Seventh-day Adventist Academy in Lincoln, Nebraska, I wore the badge of exhaustion with my head held high (or as high as I could manage): I believed that the additional hours I spent at work made me a more dedicated teacher, a more thoughtful and productive educator. 80+ hours a week. I barely made it back to my apartment long enough to shower and sleep. The only break I took that year was when I caught swine flu from one of my seniors, and was forced to stay home, quarantined in my apartment, barely able to get out of the recliner in my living room, where I had to sit upright so I didn’t drown from the fluids in my lungs, so sick I thought I might die.

Fourteen years of teaching later, an average of 80 hours a week remains the norm.  Obligating teachers to martyr their work-life balance, to spend minimal time with their families, and to feel guilty for taking a day off, are the norm. I did have one boss, an incredible woman who also spent the vast majority of her time teaching, who basically told my coworkers and I “okay, work is done, go home now.” But for most of my career, when I expressed any kind of difficulty or exhaustion from the sheer amount of work I did and the time it took to do it, it was met with “yup. That’s the job.”

And teaching is certainly not alone in harmful hustle culture. I’m reminded of the pushback from some members of the medical community a decade ago when the shift requirements for resident physicians were decreased due to the increasing chance of harmful/deadly mistakes made after someone who had already worked a long shift (read: 16+ hours-long shift) was required to continue to work a 24-30 hour shift. “I lived through it. You have to too.” Bootstraps. (By the way, we’ve regressed on this front, legalizing 24-30 hour resident shifts again in many places despite multiple studies that prove this is dangerous for both patients and residents.)

These days, I’ve been spending a great deal of time thinking about how so many of the systems that model/designate work for us are inherently flawed. I would not have chosen to work two to three jobs while going to school full-time: I was required to, in order to exist, not to mention to be seen as “a productive member of society.” I worked to supplement my tuition (a lot of good that did me – I have over $150k in student loans from two degrees at Adventist schools), but ended up having to live on a credit card, racking up debt because there simply wasn’t enough money to go to school and eat and pay for gas at the same time.

We are made to think that our productivity, our work, our fitness, will somehow make us worthy, somehow make us valuable. Somehow, if we just work hard enough, our work will save us, be it from debt or from being seen as lazy or unable/unwilling to provide for ourselves and our families. Somehow being fit will make us “good.” But the systems, whether you want to cite 16th century Protestant work ethics, the Industrial Revolution, capitalism, consumerism, diet/fitness culture, or even, as I’ve sometimes heard it expressed in Christian culture, “earning bigger jewels for your heavenly crown,” are inherently flawed because they are not interested in our humanity. They are not interested in grace. They are only interested in what we can accomplish, what we can produce (even if it only produces rewards in the afterlife). And what we can produce, dear ones, is not where our value lies.

I’m reminded of one of my mother’s good friends, who was paralyzed after an accident during their senior year of high school. Her value does not lie in her ability to workout, to clean her house, or even in her ability to take care of herself. Her value lies in her humanity. She is human, a person, therefore she is inestimably valuable. It has nothing to do with her ability to produce or accomplish. She is immeasurably valuable because she is a child of God.

Or I think of a close friend who has been stricken with long Covid. Right now, all she can do is purposefully, even frustratingly, rest. Not do all of the work and deep thinking she is accustomed to doing. Not explore new things. Just. Rest. Her value is not in her ability to do, or to take care of her family or even herself. It is in her personhood. She has not lost any part of her worthiness and value simply because she is not able to produce. That’s not how it works.

Sometimes I feel that we continue in systems that are destroying us because we believe we have no other choice–that we’re simply failures if we can’t keep up. But I have lived in places where rest is built into the system–in Argentina, where every day, folks close everything down and take the siesta, and in Taiwan, where naps are built into lunch breaks for school kids and adults alike. It is possible to create wide-scale systems which implement the absolute need for rest.

Let my work–let our work—be rooted in full humanity and grace. It’s not just about recognizing that the systems we are a part of are flawed though, or about setting boundaries to protect ourselves from toxic hustle culture, or even about calling that culture out. We have a duty (note: when we are able and not overworked) to use our power and influence to work to revitalize (or even scrap and start over) systems into spaces where our fellow human’s needs, situations, and wellness are of topmost priority. Recognizing that if we are truly flourishing, we must create an environment that nourishes all of us. Instead of “bloom where you’re planted,” how about instead remembering what Alexander Don Heijer says: “when a flower doesn’t bloom you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” We tend the garden. We bake the daily bread of recognizing each other’s full humanity and we live and breathe grace, for ourselves and for each other. That’s me into we. Being well. Growing out of a strong foundation in humanity and grace, in everything we do.