The main premise of this book is that workism is particularly American and a fairly modern phenomenon. Workism is the belief that work is the source of meaning in your life, and the author explores how work has come to replace religion, and any other type of volunteering, to become the main focus for everyone.
If you treat work like a religion as the best use of your time, then any time spent not working is time wasted. I know I fight with this and have a hard time relaxing knowing that there are more books to enter here, or books to read, or something to do that is “productive”. It made much of my summer hard to enjoy because at no point did I feel like I could let off the gas. Even time spent in the hammock had to be enforced by myself because I continued to think of other things I could be doing.
There are many other interesting books recommended by the author that I’ll be digging into over the next few years.