The cost of stress is a rat race no one wins

Jun 21, 2005

PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA<br><b>Opiyo Oloya</b><br><br>June 19 was the third Sunday in June. It was Father’s Day, one of those New Age inventions for creating traffic at the local mall as daughters and sons look for suitable gifts for their fathers.

PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA
Opiyo Oloya

June 19 was the third Sunday in June. It was Father’s Day, one of those New Age inventions for creating traffic at the local mall as daughters and sons look for suitable gifts for their fathers.

As a father of two young sons, it was the perfect day for excusing myself from doing real work. Sorry, I can’t write the column for the New Vision today because I am busy being a dad. Too bad I can't go to the gym today because I am taking my sons to see the blockbuster Disney's movie Madagascar.

Okay, reading the report cards will have to wait the extra day because the family plans to see the sun set from the local park, hang out, throw sand, climb monkey bars and generally be silly.

Yes, you could say I am being very lazy, and you are probably right.

On the other hand, in a world of tight deadlines, break-neck working days, and unrelenting assaults from things that need to be done, being lazy once so often may be a very good thing. In my own family, it is the very rare occasion when we sit down to a hearty breakfast together.

These days, to get in an hour of physical exercise, the alarm goes off at 4.30am to get me to the gym for five o’clock. After working a sweat, I rush back home to wake up everybody including Ogaba (just barely two-and-half years old) for six o’clock. Getting the boys ready, feeding Ogaba his nyuka (porridge), and making Oceng pack his lunch takes the better part of half an hour.

At ten to seven everyone rushes out the door, into the car so we can drop Ogaba at the home daycare, Oceng at his school, Mom at her place of work, and allowing me to hit my workplace by eight o’clock.

My breakfast is eaten in the car — usually oatmeal porridge mixed with soya milk and placed in a car-mug so it won’t spill over. With one hand on the steering wheel, and the other holding the hot mug, I negotiate the already bustling streets to work. Lunch at work is often a luxury as most of the disciplinary issues arising from the school yard tend to occur during lunch breaks when the students are outside.

When I can, and this is very rare, I sneak something quick to eat before preparing to meet students, staff or parents or all three groups at once. By day’s end, the stomach is wound so tight it could snap.

Back home, the crazy routine is repeated in reverse — cook food, bathe Ogaba, feed the boys, check Oceng’s homework, read a book, play a little with the boys, and send them to bed by 8.30pm. Those are on the good days when I do not have an evening meeting or class, but often, there is barely enough time to drop them home before taking off for a long evening meeting or class or whatever.

Things get even more hectic as we enter the weekend, and Emily goes for overnight work in Toronto.

After snatching a quick dinner on Friday evening, we take her downtown, turn around, drive home and sleep (although lately we have added a stopover in the local park for a quick half-an-hour before going home).

The point is that the harried lifestyle has become the single most dangerous enemy of healthy living in North America. In fact, managing stress and burn-out for parents, employees, students and just about everybody is a multi-billion dollar industry. Books are churned out with titles such as Banishing Burnout: Six Strategies for Improving Your Relationship with Work, Time Off for Good Behavior: How Hardworking Women Can Take a Break and Change Their Lives, and so forth.

All told, according to Google search on my computer, there are at least 43,234 current books, 19,393 journals, 5939 magazine articles and 7,279 newspaper articles on the subject of work and stress.

The cost of stress in North America, Europe and Japan is estimated at tens of billions of dollars. Obviously, it is a rat-race that nobody wins, and as any doctor worth his or her salt will tell, it is a losing proposition. The joke now is that everyone is looking for that magic moment of play and no work by working even harder.

Naturally, I have discovered that made-for-the-mall days like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas and so on, are perfect for forgetting the work and having fun. And for a while, you do forget about that deadline as you work hard at feeling good about doing absolutely nothing.

However, as a columnist with a deadline, you eventually must remember to send that column. In which case, you desperately create something; anything that you can submit to your editor and get away with — anything, even a story about being lazy on Fathers Day fits the bill. Sorry, I’ve got to go. The boys are waiting to go see the movie Madagascar…

Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});