Symposium: How much work do people need?

"Burnout is not an illness; it is more of a kind of risk condition," Herbert Rebscher (CEO of DAK-Gesundheit) once said. A state of risk is the end of a journey to the very limits. What may sometimes be appealing in youth becomes a health problem in the long run. The peculiar thing about limits: you only discover them once you’ve reached or crossed them.

We’ll go even further and ask: Isn’t burnout actually a healthy reaction to ever-increasing acceleration and work intensification? You might be thinking: Here comes the same old song about work-life balance and mindfulness.

But: Are we really paying attention to anything at all? Or are these stories about good self-care just all-too-easily believed clichés we use to gloss over our messed-up, rat-race lives? Doesn’t wellness itself become a race track: faster and faster, yet more relaxed? When someone loses their footing or falls completely off the hamster wheel, don’t we say they didn’t do enough for themselves?

A self-deceptive vicious cycle? At the very least!

Don’t worry—we won’t just be presenting academic lectures. As with our previous event, “Sustainability and Leadership,” our goal is to foster discussions on very practical questions (this time: “How much work does a person need?”), enriched with scientific insights and, at times, some heartily polemical punchlines. We’ll dissect the current concept of health and throw a few sad verses at the Protestant work ethic. We’ll talk about doctors who declare anyone who can still just about walk to be “fit for work.” We’ll ask you what true enjoyment is. We analyze why many people, shortly before they die, regret one thing above all else—having worked too much. And if you’d like, you can examine your priorities with a few exercises that are as brief as they are instructive.

In short: We’ll discuss important questions about work and life with you. Let’s get started!

Instructors:

• Markus Will from the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences
• Prof. Dr. Matthias Schmidt from Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences
• Jörg Heidig—process psychologist at Kleinert | Heidig & Partner

Please register for the symposium on April 18 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.:

By email: m.will@hszg.de or via Facebook: www.facebook.com/events/511725892263816/555842014518870/

Venue:

Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences

Brückenstraße 1, Görlitz