Work Life

I have been hearing and seeing a good bit of information regarding work-life balance and I find myself struggling with both the term and concept. My purpose in today’s post is to challenge our thinking on this subject to see if there is a better way for us to handle it. Of course, the answers to some of the questions arising from this discussion will be different for each of us, but answer them we must.

In thinking about work-life balance, some of the questions that come to my mind are:

• Do we have to somehow divide our lives into work life and personal life?
• Do we not only have one life?
• Is work not just a part of this one life?

The primary concern stemming from these questions has to do with division. You may have heard the saying, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” I often wonder if we are treading dangerous ground when we divide ourselves like a pie chart with labels such as personal life, work life, spiritual life, etc. It seems to me if we act as though we have different lives, we may begin to get conflicting signals about who we are and what we are really supposed to be doing; a form of personal schizophrenia if you will. Additionally, it seems we will expend an exorbitant amount of energy trying to be different people in each of these “lives” or even trying to “switch gears” between them.

There is a certain amount of time we must dedicate to work and there is only so much time we can dedicate to other things. This cannot be fixed by thinking of our work time as a different “life” or by looking at our life as a scale that must be balanced on a single, pivotal point. The fact of the matter is, as full-time employees, the amount of time we spend on work will always outweigh the time we spend on any other singular activity.

Instead of trying to balance two different lives, perhaps a holistic approach to our one life is necessary to prevent it from becoming too lopsided. Doing things like:

• Ensuring time spent on work is not overly disproportional to time spent on other things.
• Giving our focus to the appropriate sources. (e.g., Not thinking about or doing work while with family.)
• Allocating the proper energy to the time we are spending. (e.g., Not allowing work to steal energy from family and vice versa.)
• Making our work part of ourselves and putting ourselves into our work.

I hope this stirs our minds and generates thought on how we can live the one life we have to its fullest and not feel pulled in so many directions.

“Profit is a by-product of work; happiness is its chief product.” ~Henry Ford

~ John