LIFE

I Think I Just Need to be At Work

It took me losing it to understand what it was doing for me

Me, at work.

“As long as you’re working, life is beautiful.”

This line came from my mother.

My mother and I have always had a clear communication disconnect, so I never accepted or responded to this line of hers. To me, she was just repeating a standard phrase from some textbook.

But I eventually adopted my mother’s words anyway. “As long as you’re working, life is beautiful” — I once posted this on social media of my own accord.

To me, though, it’s not a line from some motivational article. It exists, real, in my heart.

I’m not a workaholic. I don’t have grand career ambitions. But I do love being at work.

In the past, I wouldn’t have used the word “beautiful” to describe being at work. It’s just that work constructed my entire life — my role, my confidence, my stability. So my life was work, and when I lost that state, I lost everything. I would fall into a low, into instability.

Me, working — back then.

This month, I returned to WeWork, to the scene where I used to work. This confirmed a fact for me: the meaning of being at work, for me, goes far beyond role and income.

Thinking back, I once had the means to rent a two-person office, where I kept all my work supplies. In that space of less than five square meters, I was surrounded by the atmosphere of being at work.

The moment I stepped through that glass door, I entered the state of working, free from external worries. Even when there were problems, they were only work problems — and I could think them through, solve them one by one.

I would deliberately place drinks and snacks in the room, more as decoration than for actual use. I wanted a space with a sense of life in it, an isolated space where I could feel safe the moment I entered, a place I was willing to stay for long hours.

So back then, I would arrive early and leave late. I wasn’t lonely or bored. I had many work problems to handle. Looking back now, that was the happiest period of my life. Or maybe now I can use the word “beautiful.”

It felt like its own world.

In the years that followed, noise from the outside world — noise that didn’t belong to me — invaded, and I lost the state of being in work. I also lost the small room that could isolate me from that noise. That’s when I realized: the meaning of being at work wasn’t about income or social role. It was a necessity for maintaining my emotional and life stability.

So when I returned to WeWork last week, all those familiar feelings gradually came back. Even though I don’t yet have the means to rent an office again and can only squeeze into a phone booth at WeWork — less than one square meter — where I can’t stretch out or arrange my familiar objects, where I can’t recreate that familiar sense of safety. Still, the moment I step through that glass door, I can enter the state of being in work. There are constant work problems to think through and solve, isolating me from external disturbances. I’m willing to stay there for long hours.

For me, being at work is emotional support.

So “as long as you’re working, life is beautiful” — now, occasionally, I say this line to myself in my heart. It’s not a slogan. It’s a reminder to myself, and a confirmation.

Still, I find my way back.