Chris Horst is the vice president of development at HOPE International, where he employs his passion for advancing initiatives at the intersection of entrepreneurship and Christian faith. He recently wrote this op-ed for The Denver Post on Denver's recreation obsession - and how to restore a proper balance between work and sabbath.
The workaholism surge across this country needs an asterisk. And that asterisk is Denver.
In Denver, we don't just work for the weekend. We work for the late afternoon hike. Across the country, studies point to the rise of work-addicted cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Nationally, 62 percent of high-earning individuals work more than 50 hours a week.
Denverites think we are workaholics, of course, but this has little to do with the actual hours we work. We think we are workaholics because in our outdoor recreation-obsessed culture, any extra minute on the job feels like one less minute on the mountain.
In my job as a nonprofit fundraiser, I meet with a lot of new Coloradans. And I'm surprised how many escape to Denver from somewhere like New York or Dallas. It's like they were slaving away in the rat race and took a massive detour to the Rocky Mountains. They are fleeing the travails of 9 p.m. dinnertimes and unused vacation days. In Denver, they find comrades in their overwork-averse battle. We treasure our 300-plus days of sun a year. And we want to enjoy it from places other than our cubicles and conference rooms...
To continue reading, see the original in the Denver Post at http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_26704584/denvers-4-p-m-rush-hour-go-play?source=infinite.
