When Work Becomes a Crutch
Choosing the easy work of your job over the hard work of your family.
We like to measure things and see progress in the things we measure. I can tell the lawn has been mowed. I can tell my efforts at sales have worked because revenue has gone up. I can tell I’m getting further along in my book because the pages have been turning.
But the work of leading a family, of raising children, can be difficult to measure. Your wife still nags you, despite knowing you are trustworthy. You’ve had to discipline the kids for the same things over and over. No one seems to listen. Your household always feels like a mess.
People are messy, and this messiness gives many men a sense of disconnect. They can’t figure it out. They feel like nothing they do matters. Success is always just out of their reach.
And so they retreat to a place where success makes sense. They retreat to where their efforts are tried and true, where they know their work matters.
There is nothing wrong with finding some comfort in a job well done. But retreating to that sense of accomplishment, staying longer hours at work, holing up in your home office, can become an abdication of your responsibilities.
You feel like you’re being more responsible, but you are neglecting what’s most important. Leading people is hard, sometimes thankless, work. But as a husband and a father, it’s what you are called to do.
Retreating to your job is the easy way out. It gives you a sense of familiar control.
But you must not take the easy way out.