I have been defined as sick—with fatigue disorder—since last September. I am slowly on my way back though. How did I get here? To a situation in which I practically collapsed, unable to remember any thing, unable to read, understand recipes, watch television or look at a computer screen? How did I end up prioritizing work more than my family? I do not want to prioritize work, I never decided to. I just ended up doing it, as if by pure accident. Last summer I spent working—my head kept spinning like crazy while my body was on vacation. I have a good boss who sent me to the doctor, who took me off work. Most people are not so lucky.
I was born in the middle of the first generation in the 'developed world' who will probably die at a younger age than their parents, despite life conditions which are presumably better than those of our parental generation. We have not experienced any major wars, our workplaces are generally safer (from an accident-at-work perspective), we have continuos access to better and more varied food (but maybe not as safe from a toxic perspective), giving birth is not dangerous in our (geographical and social) part of the world, we have more leisure time than ever before (apart from some Stone Age societies, see Marshall on that), we need not worry about survival (but we do anyway, because survival has taken on a social rather than a bio-systemic meaning).
Nevertheless, our condition is really questionable. We have not only access to better and more varied food, but also to really bad food, we have ready access to sweets, alcohol and bad fats, which threaten our health quite directly. Our food and environment is contaminated by toxins, it has been genetically modified with the main objective of hyper-production of cheap food, it is produced by extremely un-sustainable methods.
We have much less access to time for relaxation, socializing, exercising, value oriented structuring of our working days, sensible work ethics and eating habits. We are focused on high quality output performance in every little thing we do; at work, when making love, planning families, during pregnancy, parenting, when going on holiday, designing our homes, cleaning them and refurbishing them... Even in our habit of 'prioritizing' soft values and family, and in being relaxed about everything, we are focused on output performance. The bread we bake, the marmalades, jams, cakes and cookies we make and the gardens we grow need to be perfect—in a shabby chick, relaxed and a well orchestrated and planned haphazard-looking way. If we are not burned out by 40 and thereafter having learned how to turn down our demands on ourselves, we will die by 70...
