Live to work or work to live

“Live to work or work to live” is a simple question but it is very complicated to find the answer. There is a paradox that points if a person does not work, it will not get money to live, meanwhile if the person works too hard, it neglects its own body. This paradox makes anxiety among the society and even worse there are people that are not aware of this issue so they are willing to work overtime and become their habit. For example, in Japan, they call ‘Karoshi’ when someone dies due to overwork. Ever since the 1970s Japan already had this word and it means that it is common in Japan’s society dealing cases like this ( Weller, 2018 ). The purpose of this assignment is to engage people to evaluate the work habit that they currently have. This essay will begin by discussing what is the main reason that people are willing to work overtime. The second part will elaborate on the effect of working long hours habits linked to physical and mental healthiness and provide evidence from several studies. However, it will be argued that overtime work can not be blamed as the major cause of health issues considering the study methods to collect the data.   

Nowadays, Social status, fame, and money have been a benchmark to be regarded as a successful individual in societies. Jing Li, 25, an accountant at Huawei which is the biggest telecom equipment maker in China said that she felt depressed due to her working habit. However, she faces hard choices if she leaves because last year she earned around $40,000 last year which is about four times higher than the average wage. Nonetheless, Li feels it is not worth it. She has to work as if she is 4 people although she earns more money than others. ( Xueqiao & Hancock, 2019) This fact brought a picture that several people do not know about what to do in their life, they work for only one reason : to survive in society. Society has to think about this before they regret it when they realize that they only live to work and have no time to enjoy their life. There are several deaths caused by working long hours, one of those is in China. For instance, Zhang Rui ( 44 years old) founder of a mobile health app start-up, died suddenly because of a heart attack. Chinese media linked the death due to his habit, they found that he was still sending emails at 3 am ( Xueqiao & Hancock, 2019 ). These findings indicate that his body can not take the pressure given by himself. In spite of the fact working is a good activity, it should not be done too much

We acknowledge that there are a lot of benefits given from working long hours such as more wages and incentives. On the other hand, we should consider the fact that working overtime could increase the risk of your health issues. According to Mika Kivimaki, professor of epidemiology at UCL, colleagues found that there is a 1.3 times higher risk of stroke in individuals working 55 hours or more, compared with those working standard around 35-40 hours per week. They also analyzed data that have been collected from 25 studies engaging more than 600,000 men and women who were monitored for an average of 8.5 years and showing a 13% increase in heart and related problems. Moreover, working for long hours can lead to a mental issue. To give a clear example, Gina Wang, a brand manager in China who works most days at 10 am and finishes at 10 pm reports the burden of work might be contributing to her stomach problems and periods of depression. As we know people need rest and recreation, people who have worked long hours will consider that leisure time makes themselves not productive. Constant work can result in burnout and affect our mental wellbeing. It is obvious that if we clear our mind and not stress we can think more rationally and be more productive. Otherwise, these arguments mentioned above can not be trusted completely because we are the controller of our bodies.

The enormous aspect of our life is a lifestyle, we can choose our life to be good or bad depending on the lifestyle that we choose. Working long hours can be considered as a lifestyle too but can not be regarded as the major factor of health issues. If we look carefully, many factors can lead to health issues such as smoking, drinking alcohol, inactivity habit, junk food routine, etc. We can also maintain our body by working out, eat fresh and healthy food, and many other things. Thus, working overtime can not quite true to consider as a major factor in health issues. Confirming to Dr. Tim Chico, reader in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Sheffield, said the study can not prove working overtime could cause stroke and heart disease. He said, “It is almost certainly impossible to prove whether there is a direct link as this would require thousands of people to be randomly allocated to work more or fewer hours and followed up for years to see if this changes the risk of stroke while keeping all other behaviors the same between groups”. We can maintain our mental wellbeing too by doing what we like. We can do our hobbies, doing something fun, hanging out with friends and family. It would be better if we choose the carrier that we are passionate about. Therefore, we can work for a long time and not feel depressed about it because we like to do that. 

In conclusion, we work to get the money to fulfill our needs but sometimes people work too hard as far as they do not think about themselves. There is a lot of evidence that shows that working overtime could be dangerous to our health despite all the benefits we got. Studies from Universities also stated that working long hours can increase the risk to get stroke and heart problems. However, we can prevent this by eating healthy food and doing a workout. We need to manage time as well as we can to balance our life. We have to consider carefully about the working hours and how much leisure time we can get. It is recommended to find a career that comes from our hobbies or something we like thus we rarely get stress and it is mentally good. In the end, it is our decision to maintain and balance our life.