Whenever someone asks me if I have “work-life balance,” it makes my skin crawl. My work is an essential component of who I am. There isn’t a work me and a personal me. I’m just me, all the time. When I’m at work I often think of non-work stuff, and when I’m not at work I often think of work. I don’t have a work/non-work switch and there certainly aren’t two of me who can climb onto different sides of an imaginary scale to evaluate my “balance.”
An uncluttered life is not a balancing act.
When you decided to get clutter out of your life, you made this decision because you felt that clutter was/is preventing you from achieving the life you want. If you’re like me, the life you want to live isn’t just work and non-work. Maybe your remarkable life includes being healthy, being a supportive and nurturing father, going rock climbing at least twice a month, learning new skills associated with your job, finding innovative and creative solutions in your work, and staying present in the moment. When you’re pursuing “being healthy” you do this at work and when you’re not at work. You can discover “innovative and creative solutions” for your work when you’re hiking with your family (being a nurturing father) as easily as in your cubicle. Without clutter in your home, office, thoughts, and life you don’t have to worry about “balance” because you’re able to pursue the whole life you want.
If you’re seeking “work-life balance,” consider stopping. Instead, identify the many things that matter most to you and focus on those valuable, multiple, remarkable things.
Clarification: Having a job, at least for most of us, is how we provide, pursue, and care for the things that matter most to us. Getting rid of clutter likely doesn’t include getting rid of your job, just the clutter in your job. It’s similar to doing chores — they might not be fun, but completing chores takes care of the physical things you choose to have in your life.
Finally! I’ve been thinking this all along, and I thought I was the only one whose skin crawls when others mention “work/life balance.” Thank you for your perspective on this.
Actually, no one really started using this annoying buzzword until Oprah crammed it down everyone’s throats.
I think you have very much misunderstood what people are asking when they ask that question.
Of course work/career is part of who we are, that is a given. What they’re asking is what is the ratio? Do you skip lunches to get more work done, or work when you get home or go back to the office on weekends, or work late? That is what they mean by work/life balance. You need to take care of yourself at the same time, time to think, to eat, to chat to your work friends. It goes the other way too, not ditching work to stay out late etc.
This is what they mean, and it is a very real and important question.
I think that a healthy intertwinement of work/life is better that work life balance. In order for it to be considered balanced it must be 50/50 and that is quite not possible in real life.
Interestingly, I did leave my VP position as part of the process of learning the lesson you describe. Like rebooting a computer, it wasn’t until I shut down and stepped away that I was able to see how much I had allowed the prestige, status, money, and the things I purchased with the money to define who I was and what was important to me. As a result, when I did return to work about three years later (into a completely different career and with a decidedly different attitude about what it means to be who I am at work and at home) I could see things that I might not have seen from the vantage point of the position I once held. Today I make less money, my house is smaller and I am more careful with my purchases, but I have the pleasure of guiding young minds as a college professor and am thrilled that my first book – a memoir describing this process of letting go and following my heart – is scheduled to release with a wonderful publisher in May. Call it balance or call it integration, either way I needed some distance to understand who I was in it…