I don't think workaholism is an issue so ubiquitous that it could be considered a human condition to deal with. It's certainly existed for an undoubtedly long t

I don't think workaholism is an issue so ubiquitous that it could be considered a human condition to deal with. It's certainly existed for an undoubtedly long time, as you point out ("burning the midnight oil" was another more recent reference). It may even be a survival trait that developed for some: persistence and effort, not giving up, focus, etc. In the modern human experience most people realize they don't or shouldn't have to run constantly just to survive. They understand how societies function and that if everyone puts in a little effort we'll all get growth and returns. Modern workaholism in my opinion stems from market factors driven by capitalism and governmental policy. People have to hustle to survive more and more, we've began stripping off the protections societies have and replacing darwinistic survival of the fittest with a human social abstraction of survival of the fittest in economics. You need to make sure you succeed in the market to provide food, shelter, so on, otherwise you will starve or falter to poor health. You may be out on the streets living in a box. You'll still have some protections over living in a jungle alone, you're less likely to be eaten by a tiger or mountain lion but your overall longevity will be lower relative to economic success on average. So the captains of industry, those who hold the purse strings, those who shape the culture and expectations are forcibly creating these sorts of obsessions through various private policies in terms of employment. You need to reach certain goals, you only take so many days off, you need to exceed your peers, you need to "grow" (become more efficient, pull in more revenue relative to your cost), and so on. These environments shape a lot of workaholics you see now, in my opinion. They do it because to succeed in life they need to. To do the things they want to do, those are the rules they must play by. To supply their families, they pick up a second job, they sacrifice their evenings with their families to get a little ahead so maybe they'll be promoted or get a raise to meet up with inflation or in some cases, just so they're not the one on the chopping board when cuts come to provide stability. Do this stuff long enough and it becomes embedded in your personal expectations and behaviors: you begin to be shaped by your environment. That's why we see so much deep focus on work. It's all driven by economic expectations and more so those who want to see their wealth magically transformed into more wealth passively. It's not everyone, there are those completely driven and obsessed with goals aligned to workaholism but I don't think it's ubiquitous, most people set realistic goals for themselves and just want to have a happy living experience not extravagence and exceptionalism. I think those who have these obsessions are the ones who shape the culture from the top down due to a selection bias in our economic system (although.. due to pigeonhole principle, only so many of them are at the complete top--many need to live with less powerful positions). This is not some crazy argument for socialism or to promote laziness, I think it's an overall good idea that people have some drive to be some measure of productive, it's instead an argument that capitalism has gone to extremes in efficiency and growth expectations and trimmed too much fat off the labor force to try and meet those expectations that labor is slowly starving. We need to reign expectations back down to something sane.