![]() It felt unnatural-like a surgeon taking out his own appendix. Though these questions were personal, I decided to approach them as the social scientist I am, treating them as a research project. And when it did, what then? Would I one day be looking back wistfully and wishing I were dead? Was there anything I could do, starting now, to give myself a shot at avoiding misery-and maybe even achieve happiness-when the music inevitably stops?ĭerek Thompson: Workism is making Americans miserable But even if I stayed at it 12 hours a day, seven days a week, at some point my career would slow and stop. My columns were published in The New York Times.īut I had started to wonder: Can I really keep this going? I work like a maniac. I was the president of a flourishing Washington think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. I was not world-famous like the man on the plane, but my professional life was going very well. ![]() It was the summer of 2015, shortly after my 51st birthday. Standing at the door of the cockpit, the pilot stopped him and said, “Sir, I have admired you since I was a little boy.” The older man-apparently wishing for death just a few minutes earlier-beamed with pride at the recognition of his past glories.įor selfish reasons, I couldn’t get the cognitive dissonance of that scene out of my mind. Then in his mid‑80s, he was beloved as a hero for his courage, patriotism, and accomplishments many decades ago.Īs he walked up the aisle of the plane behind me, other passengers greeted him with veneration. I recognized him-he was, and still is, world-famous. ![]() I imagined someone who had worked hard all his life in relative obscurity, someone with unfulfilled dreams-perhaps of the degree he never attained, the career he never pursued, the company he never started.Īt the end of the flight, as the lights switched on, I finally got a look at the desolate man. I listened with morbid fascination, forming an image of the man in my head as they talked. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but couldn’t help it. ![]() To hear more feature stories, see our full list or get the Audm iPhone app. ![]()
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