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Key points
- You need play in your life to remain balanced, but overdone it’s like having too much of a good thing—rendering it not a good thing at all.
- As your work-play balance becomes increasingly aberrant, both your relationships and your work performance suffer.
- Paying attention, being devoted to, or scheduling your life around a single pursuit risks drowning out all other considerations.
The suffix "-aholic” simply refers to being dependent on something. And that could be a substance or anything concrete—not just alcohol or tobacco, but fishing or golfing gear or (maybe most commonly) food—particularly sweets, as in suffering from “chocaholism.”
Or the compulsion could be to some pleasurable activity, such as shopping—say, for clothing apparel or cosmetics—gambling, from betting on a political primary to marble racing; time-ravenous texting; or multiple, energy-exhausting sexual encounters. Or it could be watching sporting events or becoming ensnared in social media for countless hours a day. Or even something as seemingly innocent as making bird-watching one’s singular focus (as in an ornithophile).
Get the picture? What links all these -aholisms is that, by definition, they’re all engaged in excessively. Beyond that, because these behaviors are laden with such powerful compulsive elements, they can be extremely difficult to moderate or eliminate altogether.
Moreover, the exact opposite of that which deviates too much from the norm to be viewed favorably typically will be equally detrimental to one’s health and well-being. True, that might not apply to a person’s being a teetotaler versus an alcoholic. But in most cases, it’s definitely applicable.
Take a person with over-eating problems because it's the only reward they know how to give themselves for meeting their daily obligations. If this habit eventuates in morbid obesity, its solution certainly wouldn’t be trying literally to starve themselves—as in potentially fatal anorexia.
Even water isn’t immune to this, at times, irresistible “disease of excess.” If a person’s H2O consumption is grossly inordinate, it can lead “to water poisoning, intoxication, or a disruption of brain function.” Adequate hydration, while it’s essential to sustain life, can, if overdone, culminate in over-hydration. And that's downright dangerous, even life-threatening.
Might Playaholism Be Somewhat Different?
What, then, might the still novel term “play-aholism” (as opposed to workaholism) allude to? To begin with, like almost all the other -aholisms, it implies a life that’s unbalanced. Regrettably, it’s similar to having too much of a good thing—which (alas) renders it no longer a good thing at all.
If (as regards work vs. play) we’re in a single-income family, and it’s our partner who’s gainfully employed, then our unreimbursable job is to take care of the home and kids. Otherwise, without being subsidized by an outside source, we’re obliged to find a position that's income-producing.
To be sure, work has various bonuses. Particularly in our society, earning a salary (and the more, the better) is intimately associated with our sense of self-worth. It also helps give our life structure, purpose, and meaning. And it offers us opportunities to meet others and develop nurturing relationships with them.
On the other hand, without going into much detail here, working can become obsessive and end up being far less helpful than constituting an existential hindrance. As the National Institutes of Health notes: “Workaholism may have [adverse] psychological, physical, and social effects/outcomes for the person in question and for those closest to [them]. It may also negatively affect the[ir] work environment.”
Considering the refreshing act of play, as a scrupulously planned respite from—or intermittent alternative to—work, it’s every bit as crucial to a person’s happiness and contentment. Yet if a person’s self-entertainment winds up dominating their whole life, it can be just as detrimental (or possibly even more so) as their devolving into a compulsive, over-stressed workaholic.
As one’s work-play balance becomes increasingly out-of-whack, what inevitably suffers are their relationships, especially with their spouse and children—not to mention their profession or occupation. And it doesn’t much matter what the form of play or recreation is. The point is that paying attention, being devoted to, or scheduling one’s life around a single pursuit risks drowning out everything else.
We all need to have playful activities be an essential part of our days, but it’s hardly prudent to unwittingly allow them to take over our life.
That’s why the expression, “Everything in moderation,” is such a good maxim for all of us to heed.
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