“… the selfishness of the perfectionist (workaholic) is much more subtle. While he is out in society saving humanity at a work pace of eighty to a hundred hours a week, he is selfishly ignoring his wife and children. He is burying his emotions and working like a computerized robot. He helps mankind partially out of love and compassion, but mostly as an unconscious compensation for his insecurity, and as a means of fulfilling both his strong need for society’s approval and his driving urge to be perfect. He is self-critical and deep within himself feels inferior. He feels like a nobody, and spends the bulk of his life working at a frantic pace to prove to himself that he is really not (as he suspects deep within) a nobody. In his own eyes, and in the eyes of society, he is the epitome of human dedication. … He becomes angry when his wife and children place demands on him. He can’t understand how they could have the nerve to call such an unselfish, dedicated servant a selfish husband and father. … In reality, his wife and children are correct, and they are suffering severely because of his subtle selfishness.” -Minirth and Meier
Labor of Love
I imagine a dark, inky, brown desk with old carvings and rusty drawers which atop would settle my 1940s typewriter. Although who am I kidding?, one of those would be a fortune. A laptop it is. I'd read news articles all day, composing stories and literature work to submit for publishing all the while editing works from fellow writers as well. I swivel in my chair, maybe kick my feet up on the desk and sip some British coffee, whatever that is. It's the creamy and smooth stuff, the kind where you pick up little sugar cubes with dainty silver tongs and drop it into teacups intricately designed with flowers and cherubs and blue birds peeking out from behind lush crops. Maybe there'll be music slipping into the atmosphere from the vintage record player I found in the attic. King Cole and Fitzgerald will be serenading long into the night. In the morning I'll find myself buried beneath books and fan letters and front page newspapers with my face plastered on it of how I'v...
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