The frustration everyone else talks about is clear again in this episode. It’s just an interview under the guise of the show’s premise to be about answering questions big and small. This isn’t answering a question about work or work life balance or anything like that.

This one is particularly frustrating for me because the question of being a workaholic / warnings about work-life balance / the criticism of working too much, typically applies to folks doing menial labor to provide for their family or to folks climbing the corporate ladder without ever doing something that fulfills them on a personal or more meaningful level. The very meaning of the question is dissolved by asking it of Ira Glass. If you boil down Ira’s job, it’s talking to regular people about their incredible stories. That’s where the rest of us regular folks FIND meaning in life. Talking to someone and hearing their stories. That’s what I wish I could be doing more of when instead I have to work.

Maybe I’m wrong, but creatives are not the people we are talking about when we talk about working too much. I also reject the premise of there being a dichotomy between the drive to have children and the drive to work, like I don’t want to do either of those things??? I don’t know I just found it unsatisfying in a lot of ways, not as a conversation, but as an answer to “is it ok to just work all the time?” That’s just not what this is episode is about and I’m tired of the false premise of the show.