The Instinct for Self-Destruction

There’s a young man who works night shift at a multinational company. He has been on the job for a while already. The pay is good, good enough to afford the things he likes.

I met this guy first when he was still in college. He was a nice kid; smart, clear-minded, and could communicate himself very well. As he was a natural actor, too, I’d often cast him in my short film projects.

He impressed me with his talent and ideas; his views on things were wholesome and refreshing. And he was personable. It seemed life could only get better for him from there.

We had not seen each other in about three years. When we met again recently, I didn’t recognize him right away. I found him to be a different person now, quite different.

He had difficulty focusing himself. He kept repeating things, at times addressing me by my name, sometimes as “Sir,” sometimes as “Partner.” He asked where I was residing in Cebu and I told him. Minutes later he asked again.

The young man – he’s already 24 – told me he averaged only four to five hours of sleep a day. Although he was often already tired at 7 a.m. after his shift, he would not go straight home. He and his co-workers would still hang out at a coffee shop or bar and talk nonsense for hours.  

He also said he’d been feeling rather groggy on most days. And, yes, he would treat himself to drugs every now and then with his friends. But he was not a drug addict, he swore. All right, he just had the means now to experiment on things, the means to waste himself away.

The habitual lack of rest was taking its toll on his body. He had lost much of his appetite and yet his body bloated. His physical senses have grown rather numb. He had to smoke a lot and continually gulp extra-strong coffee just to get that “kick” to keep him up.

He experienced palpitation in his chest several times already. “But I’m okay,” he assured; his recent company-sponsored physical checkup did not reveal anything wrong. The thing that alarmed him, though, was the few episodes of mental block-out where his mind would trip off completely for a few seconds. The doctor advised him not to drive anymore for now.

The company’s human resource officer had arranged a series of sessions with a psychologist for him and a number of his co-workers. They had recently been observed to exhibit some erratic behavior at work. I encouraged him to attend the sessions and take it to heart.

I hope those guys decide to attend the appointed sessions. They will certainly realize that the problem that brings them to the therapist is mostly of their own making. No amount of effort and money will work – no matter how sophisticated the therapy techniques or how supportive the environment – as long as the person himself does not acknowledge the ultimate truth about his problem.

It is good enough to have a job these days. Bad enough if the only good-paying job you can find is one that upsets your biorhythm. But what’s worse is when you acquire habits to push you farther down the pit.

It’s actually in our nature – the instinct for self-destruction. Only by facing this inner monster can we learn to rule over it. The road to our own perdition, although may be etched in the map of our lives, is one we may opt not to take.