I was an accidental workaholic, and that didn’t go well

Each of us has moments in life when we realize we are not the person we thought we were. Sometimes we surprise ourselves. Sometimes we disappoint ourselves. Either way, our self-concept gets cracked like an egg on the sharp edge of truth.

The film Project Hail Mary has one of these moments. Ryan Gosling’s character, Ryland Grace, wakes up on a spaceship far from Earth, and in a series of flashbacks, he remembers how he came to be the sole survivor of the three-person crew. One of these flashbacks is Grace’s last conversation with Eva Stratt, the head of the international task force who recruited him to the mission.

Stratt says, “This might seem like me betraying you, but this is actually me believing in you.” When Grace realizes what she means—that because he didn’t join the suicide mission willingly she is going to force him—he doesn’t bow gracefully to his fate. He makes a mess of Stratt’s office as he tries to escape the officers who move to restrain him. The scene ends with Grace’s face shoved in the dirt as someone sticks a needle in him.

This memory returns to Grace during a conversation with the alien, Rocky, who insists that Grace must be brave. The shame on Grace’s face says it all, “No, I wasn’t brave back on Earth. I was a coward.”

I once had a similar, if less dramatic, moment when I realized that I had become an accidental workaholic.

Pretty early in our marriage, my wife went out of town, and when she returned from her trip on Sunday, she asked me how I had spent the weekend. I had to think about it, my mind running back over the hours and days, and when I had an answer, it startled me: “I worked.”

We live in Knoxville near the Great Smoky Mountains, but I didn’t spend that Saturday hiking to a remote waterfall not overrun by the tourists from Ohio. I didn’t spend that Sunday afternoon reading a novel about sentient dragons in my favorite park next to the Tennessee River. I didn’t master the hula hoop. No, I pounded away at my laptop.

Why? It’s not like I was a surgeon saving lives or a big-law attorney trying to make partner in record time. I was a self-employed writer, for goodness’ sake. If I did have an appearance to keep up, it would be the slow-moving, pipe-smoking poet. I had the secondhand Lacoste cardigan to prove it.

So what exactly had glued me to my chair when past versions of Austin would have spent his time on anything but Productivity? When I was free to do anything I pleased, what possessed me to work? “Possessed” is the right word because that conversation with my wife felt like my head coming out of a fog or like my mind was returning to my body. Had I been I the one making my own choices or had I been more like a marionette on strings? How strange that I had to think hard about what had filled those three days!

Before that moment I hadn’t really considered my relationship with work. I was a freelance writer producing business-y stuff, like sales copy, web content, and blog posts, most of which I didn’t mind. Even then, I knew that this enjoyment was a gift and a luxury. Most people have to work to live, whether they like it or not, and it is a privileged few who get paid to do things they like.

Be that as it may, when the border between leisure and livelihood becomes blurry, problems emerge. I could write for pleasure one hour—say, on a humor piece about the smocks my mom made me to model for Creative Needle magazine. Then, the next hour, I might work on a client’s new homepage. The act, writing, stayed the same, but the motivation changed from the pleasure of expression to the pressure of productivity. Getting stuff done. Making money. Maximizing.

I would lose the thread of my own intent, and the change often seemed harmless in the moment. What was wrong with knocking out an hour or so of work if the mood struck me? That way of thinking is benign or even beneficial right up until productivity consumed the entire weekend and crowded out other things I valued more or needed more, especially rest.

Work can metastasize, and too much work is all too easy to rationalize. ”It’s for the bills, honey! For our children! For OUR FUTURE!”

This rationalization has something in common with many arguments: It is true without being truest. The truest or deepest reason that I worked more than was necessary or healthy wasn’t because I was captivated by all the work I was doing but because work gave me the illusion of control.

Like many self-employed creatives and consultants, I started my business because I wanted more control over my calendar, more freedom, more independence—plus, enough money to be comfortable. These desires for freedom and security are as common as sea salt and oxygen, and I only mention them because they react in surprising ways with the other elements of character and personality that creative types bring to their work and businesses: insatiable curiosity, love of craft, a penchant for problem-solving, a desire to keeping promises, a value for excellence, addiction to chaos, aversion to boredom, various fears (especially of ridicule, uncertainty, failure, and success), a lack of clarity around what we want or what exactly we’re optimizing for, anxiety (especially about money), scarcity mindset, and a genuine desire to serve.

Those last three especially have contributed to my chronic overcommitment. Take my genuine desire to serve. I like to help other people get what they want, and the world needs service businesses. Yet, I added anxiety about money to the mix. I know what it’s like to be up to my eyeballs in debt and ashamed of it. I know what it’s like to have a spouse and kids counting on me. I know what it’s like to not have enough business revenue, income, and financial stability.

And as much as I want to have an abundance mindset and make decisions from it, the occasional down month can bump me back into the old ruts of scarcity mindset. At times, scarcity mindset even seems strategic, not shortsighted:

“I’m not out of the woods yet. A better opportunity may not come along. I have to say yes [to this less-than-ideal project] because my family is counting on me.”

Our best traits and deepest desires get tangled up with societal norms and our worst fears, and in my case, this knot grew along with my family’s financial needs. I never cared much about impressing people with how busy I was, but I cared a great deal about one particular woman and the three miraculous monsters we’d made together.

When I reflect on both my internal conditions and external circumstances, I’m not surprised that I worked so much. All those years I believed I was doing the responsible thing. I thought I could work my way out of any situation, grind through any problem with my own sweat and effort, clever thinking and resourcefulness, strategy and sacrifice. Work was the mortar and pestle I could use to grind my fear into dust. Work could bring me peace.

Work becomes a means of self-protection, and work becomes identity, too. I prided myself on not playing the victim or being lazy. On not whining, making excuses, or passing the blame. On not letting myself off the hook.

Some of the tough love in there is helpful, but what isn’t is the underlying belief: “I am all alone; therefore, it’s up to me.” What is “it” exactly? Well, all of it. My life, my well-being, the flourishing of my family, any prosperity or peace I might have—all of it falls on my shoulders.

In April 2026 I hosted the first in-person retreat for the members of my online community, and I asked them to all answer several questions:

• What do I want next?
• What do I dislike about my business and current circumstances? And how am I complicit in creating the circumstances that I say I don't want?
• What am I afraid of right now? Get it all out without rationalizing any of it or trying to give yourself a pep talk—yet.
• Pick the biggest fear, and ask yourself, “What lie am I believing that is at the root of this fear?”

I floated around to the various groups and asked people to share what they had written down for the last question about the lie, ideally verbatim. What was fascinating was the lack of variety in their answers and their word choice. Everyone wrote pretty much the same thing, almost word for word: “I am alone. It’s up to me.” I later asked the room a question and let it hang in the air: “How is it that we all have different backgrounds and yet we all end up believing the same lie?”

I can’t be everything. I can’t do everything. I can’t have everything. And what good news that is for the overcommitted and heavy-laden, the burned out and broken, the depressed, desperate, and despondent. John Donne had it right in 1624, “No man is an island.”

I am not alone, and neither are you. My well-being isn’t my sole responsibility. I can ask for help, and the same is true for you.

My work is a gift, not my armor or identity, and because my work is a gift, I can put it down. I can stop working at times. I don’t have to be a writer all the time or an entrepreneur all the time. I certainly don’t have to be productive all the time.

I am a created being, a creature, and unlike machines, creatures have inherent value. Creatures are loved by our Creator even when we’re doing nothing at all. We are fundamentally beloved. That is true no matter what we do or don’t accomplish with our time, skills, and aptitudes.

Living into this identity isn’t easy when so much of our programming and our short-term incentives point us toward more work, more accomplishment, more money, more options, and more significance—or so we assume. The first step is accepting that work isn’t the antidote to fear. Love is. Love drives out fear. Will I choose to receive that love? Will you? I’m going to put my will into it given that the workaholic thing hasn’t gone so well.