Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: A Reflection of Society’s Obsession with Productivity and Workaholism
Generation Z, the name of the generation of today’s youth (those born during the time period of the mid-1990s to the mid 2010s), have much to pride themselves on. Being a generation that has grown up in an age surrounded with technology, they are constantly striving to become more aware and conscious of others around them. They value justice and diversity, and fight for the rights of minorities and suffering people. However, as Generation Z is, after all, a generation that is known for beginning to grow out of previously established norms, they are still far from perfect. Generation Z, at times, fails to practice what they preach. They’re some of the first to talk the talk, but are still yet to learn to walk the walk. As much as they stress the importance of mental health, they are the generation that is currently struggling the most with anxiety, depression, and other related mental health issues.
Let’s take a glance at a more specific issue of this generation — or rather, one of the world of the previous couple of decades as a whole. Revenge bedtime procrastination is a growing term used to describe the phenomenon of staying up past a reasonable bedtime in order to pursue leisure or accomplish what one was unable to make time for during the day. The term originates from the Chinese “bàofùxìng áoyè,” and is a rough translation of the phrase. The “revenge” in the name conveys the idea that one is taking revenge on the arduous daytime hours in the nighttime. The idea seems rather appealing at first, as it makes use of the hours usually reserved for sleep, which quite literally comes and goes in the blink of an eye (and thus could be perceived as a “waste of time”). Staying up during those hours allows people to have more time to relax and do what they want to do without having to sacrifice the necessary hustle and productivity of the day. However, it sadly falls far short of a magic solution and has its obvious and inevitable flaws.
While it is understandable that much of this suffering is obligatory (due to careers and schooling that demand substantially long working hours), the real issue lies in the fact that much of it, especially in the United States, is self-inflicted. According to an article from The Atlantic, while the average work week has lessened by more than 200 hours, many people, especially educated men, work far more than they used to. Of all groups of people, it would seem at first glance like wealthier men would be able to work less, having the financial resources to provide for themselves, but that’s surprisingly not the case. This is due to “workism,” the idea that instead of work being a necessary means of survival, it has become an almost religious means of “identity production,” as the article describes. In essence, working and productivity provides a newfound enthralling sense of purpose to those who lack any other concrete purpose.
While the article talks very specifically about a certain demographic, the effects of so-called “workism” can be seen across the board. For example, school students of the current generation seem to be struggling with a similar issue. It is no secret that American teenagers these days are overworked. With school often starting dangerously early in the morning (especially considering the fact that adolescence causes a delayed circadian rhythm, meaning later waking and sleeping times), students must endure hours of classes, followed by many more hours of homework and studying.
However, the work of a student does not end with school. These days, it is the dream of many, some would even say most, teenage students to be admitted into a top university, namely the Ivies or Stanford. The idea that millions of teenagers are chasing after a common goal that only thousands will actually be able to achieve (as the acceptance rates of many of these universities are as low as 4–5%) is dangerous enough on its own. However, considering the sheer amount of time and dedication that these teenagers must spend to even fill an application, let alone be admitted, is another level of alarming. Nowadays, in the United States, sole academic success does not suffice. Along with perfect transcripts, students also need leadership experience, hundreds of hours of community service, and carefully curated extracurricular activities in order to distinguish themselves as applicants.
Getting into a top undergraduate university is not necessary for the kind of success that many students desire. In fact, many students are not even thinking about their future beyond college so much as the goal of getting into college by itself. Rather, it is the pressure of society, as well as past generations, that glorifies these schools and stresses the importance of success so early in life to the point where wanting to get into a top university is seen as a common desire among not only students, but also their families. The competitiveness of some students to get into a top college also inspires the same in those who witness it, creating a ripple effect where if some students chase after a goal, other students are pushed to follow. Eventually, this leads to millions of very similar students struggling against each other to somehow set themselves apart in the eyes of college admissions officers. This is why students in high school often push themselves to their limits even when they’re never explicitly asked to.
The issue of overworking goes far beyond even educated men and young students (so perhaps the issue of revenge bedtime procrastination isn’t to be blamed on Generation Z entirely). The problem seems to be more aligned with the twenty-first century as a whole, as it has become a trend in recent years and decades for individuals to work far beyond what they are required to do. This survey from Indeed was conducted at the beginning of the pandemic and includes information about employees working unpaid overtime. The findings show that after the pandemic started, 61% of employees were experiencing more difficulty disconnecting from work, and more than 40% of on-site employees said that the pressure to do so was internal, possibly due to widespread struggles of the pandemic such as understaffing and the self-imposed need to compensate for such difficulties.
Many of us, if not all, would sacrifice sleep or nutrition to finish an assignment, catch up on whatever we’re behind on, or even just get in a few extra hours of work without giving it a second thought. After all, health can be improved at any time, but our deadlines won’t wait for us. That’s what we tell ourselves, at least. The interesting part of this situation is that scientists are still yet to find why exactly we sleep and if the processes carried out during sleep are done better than in the day, according to Science Focus.
But whatever the answer, sleep is undoubtedly important for us. Sleep deprivation can contribute to causing heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity, depression and multitudes of other chronic health issues, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. But it’s easy for us to overlook these long-term risks as we cannot physically watch them occur and therefore we fail to look at them as real threats, unlike blank papers, full inboxes, and ticking clocks. This is, after all, the principal of overworking and bedtime procrastination: putting off something that we consciously understand is important for something we know is, in comparison, inconsequential, but we do it because we’ll have to deal with the negative effects of failing to complete our tasks immediately and will only have to suffer heart disease in ten, twenty, or thirty years, if ever.
However, there are other ways to make ourselves understand the importance of sleep, as it has plenty of unnoticed short-term effects as well. We may not change the way we look at our work as more important than sleep. But we can choose to think about how sleep affects our work, and whether or not getting insufficient sleep is truly worth it. According to the Sleep Foundation, lack of sleep can worsen speed of thinking, attention span, memory, and energy, as well as cause us to make decisions more rashly. Put simply, sleep affects the quality and efficiency with which we work. If a task is taking particularly longer than usual, causing us to have to pour excess time and energy into it, it could simply be a symptom of lack of sleep. Therefore, by continuing to prioritize work over health, we are perpetuating a vicious cycle where the more time and energy we put in, the more time and energy begins to be required. This cycle will only ever end when we learn to reevaluate our priorities and realize that perhaps going above and beyond all the time isn’t as meaningful as we may think.
But even this logic, as rational and clear as it gets, may not be enough to motivate many to rest more. This is because the real reason we overwork ourselves does not rely on logic or rationality at all. We work and work and work blindly because it keeps us occupied and distracted, makes it feel like we are accomplishing, and above all, gives us purpose. These days, with the rise of social media and oversharing of information, people are much more aware of their flaws and shortcomings and are more filled with insecurity than ever before. More specifically, people are more cognizant of the accomplishments of others and feel the need to keep up and even outdo their peers. So, almost subconsciously, people work endlessly to feel like they are meeting this goal, without having a true end goal or objective.
Other times, people work with the somewhat flawed belief that their long hours will eventually take them to success. While it may be true that those who are hardworking tend to accomplish more, the two variables are not exactly directly proportional in every instance. Working past what would be considered healthy is not likely to take someone to the top of their field or guarantee that they will become a millionaire later in life. Rather, the people who are most successful in life had a clear passion and knew exactly what they wanted from the very beginning. This is what allows them to work without running out of energy: they genuinely enjoy what they do and find purpose in that, not in the act of working on its own.
This article from the World Economic Forum details eight factors that are shared by the world’s most successful people, including passion, innovation, and self-improvement. While hard work and persistence are definitely mentioned, you’ll notice that none of the traits involve working to the point of exhaustion and burnout, which is what many these days do. In addition, there is also the frequently neglected fact that the immense success often depends on luck, on being in the right place at the right time, on meeting and knowing the right people, rather than on talent, work ethic, or skill. Simply put, the factors that made people the most successful were completely out of their control. After all, there are many talented people in the world, but far fewer multimillionaires. While this may be difficult to accept for most people, especially today’s youth, who would rather believe that extreme success can be attained by anyone, it is one of the world’s many harsh truths.
Moreover, we often highlight the importance of enjoying one’s work, and rightfully so, as only those who genuinely find pleasure in what they do will be able to excel, barring rare cases. We are taught to take inspiration from the success stories of brilliant CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg, legendary football players like Cristiano Ronaldo, and genius entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs; and one common trait of all of these people we idolize so much is that they all had true passion for what they did, allowing them to succeed despite all the odds. However, we are meant to understand that the ambition and innate aptitude that Zuckerberg, Ronaldo, and Jobs possess is rare, and that it’s not something we should await or expect in our own lives. After all, only one a million people are born with the kind of groundbreaking talent and passion that is needed to truly enjoy what they do rather than the sole act of doing it, right? Perhaps. But that’s not exactly where the story has to end.
A few months ago, I came across a personally life-changing article from The Atlantic, bluntly titled, “Find Your Passion’ Is Awful Advice.” It discusses the prominence of the advice ‘find your passion’ in American society and its repercussions on young people’s minds. It details a paper in the Psychological Science journal, which explains the difference between the two separate mindsets, fixed and growth. The paper contains a study in which the authors demonstrate how the difference between the two mindsets comes into play in the context of thinking about career paths and interests. Based on a survey, students were either placed in the category of “techy” (focused on math and science) or “fuzzy” (focused on the arts and humanities). The students were then asked how much they thought interest could change over time. Afterward, both categories of students were given articles to read that differed from their area of interest. The results showed that the more students agreed that interests could change over time, the more likely they were to be interested in the article they read that was outside their area of expertise. The study shows us that the more one might think that passions are discovered rather than developed, the less likely they are to be interested in something new. However, it is impossible that passions are simply found, as those with the right mindset find themselves finding novel information intriguing and want to look further into it.
So why is this relevant? Why is it important for overworked youth to know that passions are not inherent? Well, a huge part of the reason that people work to the point of exhaustion is that they get trapped into the cult of working just for the sake of working. If we want to stop pushing ourselves to burnout, we must avoid this way of thinking altogether. Instead of looking for accomplishment and satisfaction in what we do, let’s look for enjoyment and interest, changing our mindsets to growth mindsets in the context of passion. If we are genuinely unable to find interest in what we are doing, even with a change of mindset, it may be best to explore more and go down new avenues and be patient with ourselves in the process. This is most significant because if we are able to find pleasure in what we do, we won’t have to think about achievement in quantity anymore. We won’t have to worry about outdoing our peers or coworkers anymore. We won’t have to think about how many hours we worked or how many emails we sent or how much we’re earning or talent and skill level anymore. We will enjoy the journey, and slowly the destination will fade into the background. Enjoying our work isn’t a luxury reserved for the uniquely gifted, a lottery ticket only one a million people win. It is something that is available to all of us, so we must take advantage of that.
Moreover, if “success,” as it is commonly defined, is truly what we seek, then why not take inspiration from successful people? That, of course, begs the question of how successful people go about becoming successful. We might want to think that they spent their days working away at their goals and desperately trying to achieve whatever they desired every hour of every day. However, yet again, our assumptions are proven wrong. This informative article from the Washington Post enlightened me as to why. Many people we call successful, including the brilliant scientist Charles Darwin, share one common trait, that being that they never spent more than four to five hours a day doing work that required great concentration and dedication (though they did possibly spend several hours on more mundane tasks as well).
In comparison, the 9–5 work day consisting of eight hours that we have become accustomed to is already double that amount. When we take into consideration the hundreds of hours a year that we spend outside of mandatory school and working hours “overachieving” or “getting ahead,” the sum becomes triple or even quadruple. So then we must ask ourselves, is all that time we spend really necessary? Well, the success stories say no. The Washington Post article goes on to say that those people who only spent four to five hours a day working spent more time exercising and resting, both equally productive, if not more, compared to working. We always claim to be “running out of time” to do whatever it is we need to do, but those who stay healthy enable thousands upon thousands of extra hours for themselves that the rest of us will never be able to access. So, in a way, rest and exercise are some of the best ways we can optimize productivity and happiness for ourselves.
Finally, for all we discuss the word “productive,” how often do we really think about what it means? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are many definitions of the word, but in this context, the most useful is “yielding results, benefits, or profits.” We often associate the word “productive” with the closely related word “product,” as in a creation that comes as a direct result of our work. But the definition of the word “productive” itself suggests that anything that results in any sort of benefit would count as being “productive,” even if it’s not a paragraph we can read or a finished product we can hold in our hands. This means that anything we do to increase our health, such as sleeping or eating, or any time we spend to build relationships, such as socializing and spending time with friends and family, can all be considered productive. We can be “productive” without having to really work. And, more importantly, the so-called “downtime” we spend doing things we enjoy, such as watching television, reading the news, taking long walks, or surfing the Internet, could all be considered “productive” — just as long as these are activities that make us happy and content. That’s not to say that when we have an important deadline coming up that we should be spending all our time at the movies or playing with our pets, but rather that it’s important not to feel guilty for being unproductive while doing anything that isn’t work.
It’s not even just that we must do leisure activities so that we have the energy for more important work, although this is a valid argument as well. It’s more that the acts of leisure are productive by themselves, even without anything to follow them up with. If we work in order to drown ourselves in what we’re doing and give ourselves some sense of purpose, why can’t this concept of “transcendence” also be applied to leisure? If we spend time outside of work and school on passions, interests, and relaxing activities, we might also be able to find purpose through these activities, and will no longer have to spend as much time doing things we don’t enjoy as much to feel accomplished. In addition, even if we are not doing anything at all, we might still be able to call ourselves productive. This Forbes article explains that as much as we may condemn boredom (recall the famous proverb “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”), it allows us to unintentionally come up with solutions for our problems. It’s often when we are bored and simply thinking to ourselves without any distraction that we come up with our most brilliant ideas.
If there’s anything that revenge bedtime procrastination has shown the last few generations of society, it’s that we simply cannot work all the time. We need leisure and enjoyment in our lives, just as we need food, water, and air. Revenge bedtime procrastination, burnout, and other such problems with time management and productivity are all symptoms that we may need to re-think what purposes we are working towards in life. Traditionally defined success is not the only source of happiness and transcendence, nor the most healthy, so why do thousands of us place work as being of the highest importance in our lives? Instead of working constantly on things that we do not care whether or not we enjoy to find a sense of accomplishment through the act of labor itself, why don’t we try something more sustainable, such finding enjoyment within our work or branching out and exploring real interests and passions? It’s time that we learn to re-evaluate our priorities. We must realize that leisure is not the opposite of productivity, and relaxation and passion are not the enemies of our successes and aspirations. Let us finally listen to the advice that we constantly give to others and take care of ourselves and our happiness. So, before we stay up till 5am once again unnecessarily to finish a task or to spend some time enjoying ourselves after a long day, let’s ask ourselves two questions: “what went wrong today?” and “why not tomorrow?”
