Why work is so much easier than loving

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you breathe a sigh of relief on Mondays just because your relationship is finally hitting a long-awaited break, then you are not alone. British writer Alain de Botton has found five reasons that explain why work is sometimes so much more enjoyable than a relationship.

Culture and art have taught us to perceive love as something sublime: it is extolled in films, songs are sung about it and thousands of poems are composed. Compared to it, work seems to us a boring and tedious routine, which we have to endure just in order to have something to pay the bills. Considering all this, it is surprising how often work, despite the absence of any visible charm in it, in fact turns out to be a much easier and more enjoyable part of our life. And there are many facts confirming this.

1. At work, you remain a professional

When you step into the office, the only thing that is required of you is to behave professionally. This means that even in those situations when you want to vomit and throw, give out slaps in the face and curse in all directions, you will still be forced to maintain a stoic calm and firmness of mind.

At work, you cannot be yourself. Exactly the same can be said about all the people around you. That is why sometimes our "work" behavior from the outside looks like fake, pretended and implausible.

However, this lack of honesty is actually extremely useful: at home we feel more relaxed and often do not control our emotions, involuntarily splashing out all the accumulated adversity and sadness on the household. In the workplace, we simply cannot afford this. As for questions of love, sometimes it can be very difficult to control yourself.

2. You are undergoing special training

When you come to a new workplace, you have a very vague idea of what exactly they want from you and what is happening around in general. And hardly anyone demands otherwise from you. In most companies, specifically for such cases, there are special training seminars and instructions for beginners, introducing them to work equipment and documentation.

If we talk about love, then it is unlikely that you will have the opportunity to pre-take an introductory course on how to behave with a partner and not fail before entering into a relationship. Here you have to learn from your own mistakes. Of course, some argue that they are just halves of one whole and understand each other perfectly, but all this is nothing more than the fantasies of a loving brain.

When it comes to the first quarrel, a real catastrophe can break out: rose-colored glasses will fall off and you will have to sweat a lot in order to patiently and without physical abuse explain to the other half the reason for your dissatisfaction. You can romanticize love endlessly, but still it would be better to understand from the very beginning that this is hard daily work that not everyone can do.

3. You are more constructive at work

There is hardly a person who would love to listen to negative reviews about their work. But sometimes it so happens that even this seems like flowers in comparison with the scandals that are being rolled over at home. According to the rules of work etiquette, every rather harsh comment is supposed to be accompanied by at least seven approving reviews. And how could it be otherwise, because everyone knows that there is zero sense from intimidated and insecure employees.

You shouldn't expect such a luxury in home debriefing. The mere assumption that a loved one cannot or for some reason does not want to do what you ask of him is equivalent to an attempt to desertion or to a deliberate desire to step on your sore corn. The only thing you want to do in such a situation is to turn around, slam the door and hide in an unknown direction for an indefinite period.

In addition, we are all periodically visited by the treacherous thought that in trying to change something in our partner, we violate the most important rule of love: to accept another person as he is. We are all, of course, not without sin and have our shortcomings, but when it comes to finding out the relationship, we completely forget about it. It seems to us that the partner pointing out to us the shortcomings is simply trying to prick us more painfully, and not to make us better.

4. You are less dependent on work

Of course, we value our employment, but even if we are suddenly fired, it is unlikely that it will be the end of the world for someone. When it comes to breaking a relationship, we tend to think quite differently, especially if the couple at this point already has common children and a mortgage (especially a mortgage).

The more we depend on someone, the more we are afraid to be disappointed in him. From the outside it may seem that this is some kind of perverted form of love, but in fact, it is mutual affection that makes us more vulnerable.

5. It's just easier to work

Managing a nuclear power plant or flying a huge airplane is hardly very easy, but it is still much easier than being truly happy in the society of a person with whom you have been in a relationship for more than a dozen years. There is simply nothing more complicated in the world than love, everything is so complicated. In addition, no one, except ourselves, can teach us to be tolerant, discerning and attentive to the desires of our partners.

Therefore, it is not surprising that every Monday we feel really happy that we can leave home again and devote our lives to something as simple and understandable as possible.