I’ve been reading a lot of
articles lately about work/life balance and the one thing I have learned from
the is this; I hate the term “work/life balance.”
Let’s start with the
“work/life” part. Listing these two in
that way makes them opposed values. I don’t
know about you, but work is very much a part of my life. Work is a part of how
I identify myself. To list them as opposite forces is unrealistic. How often does a bad day at work influence
your mood at home? How many pictures of
your family do you have in your office?
Work and “life” are intertwined like one big pretzel. Therefore, I propose instead of “work/life”
we say “work/TROL” (“TROL” standing for “the rest of life”, copyright pending.)
OK, so now that we have that
settled, let’s talk about the whole idea of balance. HA! To
me, the idea of balance conjures up an image of an old fashioned scale, where
both sides are in perfect alignment at a given moment. I don’t care if you are a mom, dad, worker or
stay-at-home, do you ever feel this way?
I didn’t think so. For me, and I
am guessing most of you, the scale is in constant flux, sometimes the work side
is higher, sometimes TROL is higher. The
key is not to allow ourselves to feel like something will always be “suffering”
because of this. Instead of being in the
moment in whatever we are doing, we worry about the things that are not being
done. How many times have you had the following thoughts?
- I should do some work from home but the kids really want me to play Barbie, Candyland, school, Legos (fill in the blank.)
- · If I go to this conference I will miss my daughter’s recital (true story)
- · I want to read to the kids but the laundry is piling up.
- · I can spend time with the kids now instead of cooking, but then will feel guilty for getting take out instead of making them a healthy meal at home.
If your answer is “never”,
well then please stop reading this blog and go back to baking your cookies from
scratch and posting pictures of them on Pinterest. If you answered “on a daily basis” then you
and I have a lot in common and we should go out for drinks sometime.
In the wise words of Roseanne
Rosannadanna, “it’s always something”.
Looking for balance sets us up for extreme failure, a goal that is just,
in my humble opinion, unattainable (much like keeping my den neat or staying away
from M&Ms.)
Maybe we should see life as
more of a see saw, some parts are up, some parts are down, the goal is to just
stay on so the person on the other side does not come crashing down too hard.
Do I take my own advice?
Well, that’s debatable depending on the day, the hour, the moment, but it
sounds like a helluva New Year’s Resolution. Who’s with me?
