On Work Life Balance
Work hard play never
Ladies and gentlemen and my fellow rabbits today we are going to talk about:
The secret. The Legend. The Myth. The Unachievable: Work-life balance.
It's the golden egg that everyone wants but no one gets. At the end of the day, (at least for me for quite a period) this thing was something that I had a lot of trouble with and frankly no matter what I did I couldn't achieve and boy did I feel guilty for not achieving it.
But in the past years, I think I have developed a better grasp of this idea and even some acceptance of my current situation.
See the thing is that according to the current social convention if you are not doing all these things: build a category-defining million-dollar brand selling hummus... teach your kid how to play the harp... learn to speak french... go and date... plot an assassination... stay single... build 50-pack abs while high on steroids... become a digital nomad and live in Bali for a year... have a picture perfect and perfectly moisturized skin... and if you are not able to all these things at the same time good and there's something wrong with you
What society says is that "You can do everything, you just have to try HARDER!" and if you fail at doing all these things at the same time then "thou art not good enough and thee shouldst feeleth guilty!!!"
I mean it's a ridiculously ridiculous idea "work-life balance" if you think about it. That you need to have the perfect optimal career and the perfect optimal home life at all times. As crazy an idea as soccer.
Is this you...?
Do you work all the time...? Nod Nod
Do you even work on weekends...? Nod Nod
Do you literally have no life...? Nod Nod
I guess this idea of work-life balance that they are two distinct things and that you have to suffer a 4 day nine to seven workweek and then you put on your beach shorts and enjoy the weekend, this stark difference is what I don't understand and quite frankly find a bit stupid.
I guess it was in one of Simon Sinek's talks where he said that it's about getting to a point where work and life are not only interchangeable but also fluid.
It's not about compartmentalizing and confining all the hours in a day into sections and then trying to check all the boxes.
The more seamlessly interchangeable you make work and your life, the more enjoyable it becomes because at the end of the day they are not two different things
As for me, I just try to live my life in a way in which there is no sharp distinction between work and play or between labour and my leisure or between education and recreation. I hardly know at times which is which.
I can work for 18 hrs a day cause it is not "working" for me. I just am simply doing what I feel like doing and I don't care much about the label's part: I just leave that part for others to determine whether it is "playing" or "working". To me, I am doing both.
If I feel like building stuff, I build stuff, If I feel like gardening I garden, If I feel a lil burnt out I just call in a duvet day and, maybe even put my beach shorts on... If feel like frolicking I goddam FROLOCK... If I feel like listening to Miley Cyrus... (well maybe not that far... but you get the point)
That's why even if I put in 18 hrs a day, I don't feel like something has been taken away from me because I am just doing what I care to do.
I think what I am trying to get is that what one should strive for is work-life harmony, not work-life balance (put that on a T-Shirt).
It's also about focusing on one thing at a time and choosing where to put your effort and not trying to multitask "life".
I believe in the idea of living life in phases and living an overall balanced life than a balanced day. Just prioritizing different things at different times.
There are some phases of my life in which some of these parts of life are my priority and some phases in which the others will be my priority...
And with that said I too do have family and friends to that I dedicate full days of my time. In those days they are the priority and clients cannot pay me enough money to interrupt this time. And then when I work I am on full DND mode. It shouldn't be that when you're working you're thinking about family and when you're with family you're thinking about work.
It's not about having a balanced day or week or month but more of a balanced life in general.
When you try to do all these different things at the same time it leads to moderation and moderation leads to mediocrity and mediocrity leads to mayonnaise.
It's the simple rule that the more limited the goal the higher the chances of efficiency in doing them. I'd just rather do two different things at two different times than at once.
It just boils down to making a conscious choice between breadth and variety on one hand and total focus and perfection on the other.
Fin.