Work-life balance and other fairy tales

There are two fairy tales in this century that keep us going like carrots on the stick. Okey, it’s a few of them, but two keep the lead.

The first one — anything is possible.
The second one is - constant and hard work will enable the first one.

Don’t even get me started with whose highlight & key phrase was ”work liberates”. But if you’re unaware google it. Little hint, period is 1939-1945, location is Europe.

However, there’s a stick that keeps those carrots — a work-life balance. And it makes me whine in the same way like when my puppy is expressing emotional pain of being neglected for three whole minutes. Like who approved me to type out this letter? Certainly not her!

I was telling myself (and people around me), how I’m not into work-life balance for years now. You know, I’m more of work & life integration person. But, that was not completely true. At least not, until I went through the total life restructuring process last year.

But first, the basics. What does ‘work - life balance’ even mean?

So, according to Robert Owen, a Welsh manufacturer from 1800’s ‘work-life balance’ would be: Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.

From the point of view of Women’s Liberation Movement from the ‘80s (to this day) it would be to distribute responsibilities of a household to both partners equally, and proper maternity leave.

And somewhere in the depth of the internet (it’ actually not so deep, it’s somewhere on the first page) I even read: Defining work-life balance involves looking at how working people manage time spent at and outside of work. Time outside of work may include managing relationships, family responsibilities, and other outside interests and hobbies.

Honestly, I cringe so hard on the last one whenever I see it, because it keeps setting work as a central part of our lives. Making everything else secondary.

Whenever I’ve tried work-life balance approach, I was hitting burnout wall fast and hard. Mostly because when work and career are primarily and only focus everything else falls into guilt tripping leisure. And, if you’ve grew up in working family living on the verge of surviving in the war/post war time you’ve indulged for sure, like me, a doctrine Leisure is a luxury for the privileged.

So, to have a better life, one needs to work more, to become more. Mixed with all ingredients from above, and seasoned with some life choices that made me miserable (which I would admit like never) my daily life looked like this:

What these definitions and approaches don’t take in the account are social contexts. I mean, how’s ‘tectonic changes in society’ categorised in the work-life balance approach? Under ‘ other outside interests’? Because, it’s currently taking big chunk of everyone’s mental loads. No matter where you’re located — something big is happening. The whole planet is boiling with big changes, protests, if not wars. And we have constant live stream of that on the tap of the finger.

So work can be escapism, can be just another part of the life, can be something we must do to be able to participate in the economical interchange and survive, can be a lot of things, you get the point. But should it be central? Should we balance it? Are we really able to can?

I wasn’t. To be honest, I was always kinda chunky and clumsy, and balance was never my thing. So, I’ve decided to reverse it.

Last year, I’ve asked myself - what I want from life. What kind of life I really want. And also, what I want from a career, what I want from work, and how they fit in into the life I want.

You can get the vibe of it in this letter

To live is to work

I’ve let those answer cook, and boil, and roast, and what not.

The truth is, I always knew what I want from life — peaceful life near the sea, one or two dogs, occasional traveling through the year, meaningful relationship with people, learning all the languages I ever wanted (I’m a big enthusiast of this one) and ton of laughs and reading time without a single guilt.

So why tf am I career chaser (because I still am, and I feel that I’ll always be)? To enable that life for myself? Yes, but also to shape part of me.

In consequence to that enlightenment (lol), I’m now going through integration process.

I have three separate goals (career wise, education based and life oriented -the last one is a weird combo of multiple things mixed in one, we’ll talk about that in Q4 ) that are actually depending on each other — meaning now: they supporting each other.

The goals are not to reach any specific anything no matter what - the goals are thighed to staying consistent in prioritising all three goals on a daily level. For now, it’s getting me peace of mind, and meaningful days.

I’ve also got myself a dog (best decision ever!), I’ve mapped out the big goals - like three year planning - and I’m taking care of my sleep, and how I spend the time in my awake time. I’ve change the job to suits my needs more, and I’m making it works with my life priorities. Not vice versa.

I’m not ignoring or neglecting anything that’s happening around me (or inside me) anymore. And it’s liberating. I do only things I care about. Sometimes that means just walking around the city with my dog, sometimes it’s coffee with friends, other times it’s gym, reading for hours, or it’s just staring into the nothing (it’s something new my friend thought me, and it’s actually helpful, but pls don’t tell my dad or he’ll ground me) …

I’m not afraid that I’m late for something in my career anymore. Don’t get me wrong, work is still a huge part of my life. It’s just I don’t compromise my needs and wants with the ones of the company/client I work with. No more capitalistic fairytales.

I do feel like I’m finally on a good path to integrated all my life roles.

We’ll se what next month brings, but it feels like a happy flow to me.

Love,

B. (and A.)