For 17 seasons, he was a Major League Baseball starting pitcher. He won a world championship and was a two-time All-Star. All after escaping his home nation to get a shot at the big leagues.
The story, the accolades — they’re all impressive. But unless you’re a hardcore baseball fan, you probably won’t recognize Livan Hernandez’s name.
You might be forgiven for this omission. Hernandez was a competent pitcher who could field his position well and even hold his own in the batter’s box. But he didn’t have the dominant pitching makeup that some of the leading hurlers of his era did.
No, Hernandez’s greatest ability was his availability. Every fifth day for a generation, he took the ball for his team. He put his cleats on the pitching rubber, wound up, and fired that ball to home plate. Then he did it again, and again, and again – only yielding his perch in the late stages of the game.
Hernandez was what was known as a workhorse. A pitcher who could be counted on to last deep into ballgames, time and again. For three years in a row, Hernandez led the National League in innings pitched. In two of those years, he led all big-league pitchers in the category.
He gave his all. But he got a raw deal for those efforts.
Indeed, as some pitchers with lower inning counts got notoriety, awards, and Hall of Fame inductions, Hernandez is now relegated to obscurity.
It hardly seems right.
A hard day’s work.
It’s a hallmark of our society. A source of pride. A badge of honor.
We honor perspiration. We laud effort. We believe in determination.
Such values have inspired generation after generation to follow the script. So, we tend not to cut corners. We put in a consistent effort, time and again. We lift ourselves up by our bootstraps.
And yet, the rewards don’t always follow. Much like Livan Hernandez, we often find ourselves overlooked in the wake of productivity. And sometimes, the outcome of our exertion is even bleaker.
Overuse injuries are all too common in the world of athletics. Pitchers can blow out their arms by throwing the ball too many times. Runners can break down by taking on too many miles too quickly.
Manual labor carries similar risks. The miner, the mechanic, the factory machinist – they can all suffer crippling injuries as a byproduct of the work they put in.
Even in less physically taxing endeavors, we can suffer maladies. Our reward for performing at a high level in the business world is all too often burnout and stress. And there are countless other areas where getting after it carries a heavy toll.
It’s a cruel irony, this Productivity Paradox. The attribute that should be driving our success is instead dragging us down.
It’s hard not to feel as if we’re somehow being chastised for desirable habits. That irrational punishment stalls our momentum. And it makes the journey forward that much more treacherous.
A hard day’s work? It’s way more than we bargained for.
You should take a break.
I’ve gotten this advice often.
Those who know me well will often laud my work ethic. But they worry that the flame that fuels me will also consume me.
And so, they encourage me to shut it down. To take a weeklong trip to a beach somewhere and to recharge.
To them, such a solution seems like paradise. To me, it sounds like a death sentence.
For I am an active person. Active mind. Active body. Active spirit. I thrive when the wheels are turning.
Yet, I am also an introvert. And so, much of the activity that I crave comes in the form of routines.
Imploring me to give all this up — the activity, the routines — it spikes my anxiety. Even if I know such advice is coming from a good place.
And so, I attack the Productivity Paradox head-on. I charge full speed ahead, consequences be damned.
I’ve generally had good fortune in these endeavors. I’ve sustained only moderate cases of burnout at work. I’ve rarely lost motivation to write for this column. And until recently, I’ve been able to run competitively, free of significant injuries.
Still, the setbacks I’ve faced from my approach have been difficult to unwrap. I still struggle with the notion that good habits lead to adverse outcomes. And the lack of clear takeaways from these experiences still baffles me.
I’m in no man’s land. A purgatory of my own creation. And it’s a special type of torture.
I was just starting out in a new role when a co-worker gave provided three words of advice.
Embrace the gray.
I knew what this implied. Much of what I was to encounter would be ambiguous, foggy, murky. I would need to use discretion to succeed in my role.
In that moment, I felt chills creeping up my spine. Because discretion wasn’t something I did well.
I had traditionally thrived on consistency. I had depended upon clarity. I had relied on learning the ground rules acting accordingly.
This choose-your-own-adventure idea — it frightened me.
Yet, over time, I got more proficient at it. Instead of relying on external expectations, I let my internal compass be my guide. And I found myself thriving.
Perhaps I can carry forward the lessons from that experience. Perhaps we all can.
After all, the road to prosperity is not always a straight line. We will face setbacks from time to time, even if we follow a winning script.
Such is the way of the world. Machines can break down after frequent use. And so can we.
When faced with this reality, we can bury our heads in the sand. We can let ourselves languish. Or we can stay the course, adjusting for feel.
We owe it to ourselves to take that last approach. To see the Productivity Paradox for what it is — a random flaw — instead of overstating its importance.
The circumstances we contend with might not always make sense. But we can still act sensibly.
Let’s make sure we do.