In my corporate days, there was a term I’d come to hate – work/life balance.
- It wasn’t that the concept was a bad idea
- It simply was so far from reality to be trite
I was not alone in my feelings. As I burned the midnight oil, more than one coworker sat by my side. Together we scoffed at the idea of a life.
It took me to a breaking point before I walked away from 30+ years of the corporate life.
Problem solved? Not necessarily.
Corporate life is not the villain. I am.
Could you be the villain in your work/life balance?
Dudley Do Right
I left the corporate life behind smack dab in the middle of our economic crisis.
- Some thought me crazy
- I knew I had no choice
I was looking for that elusive work/life balance. For the most part, I succeeded.
Then days like yesterday showed me how elusive it really is.
Choosing Life
Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of my Dad’s death. A few years ago, I packed up my laptop and moved in with my Mom to help her after Dad died. Truth is, she helps me far more than I help her, but that’s a story for another day.
My Mom places importance on special dates. I knew yesterday was a biggie in her life. She and my Dad were married for 61 years. He was the love of her life and she misses him.
- Mom bought red carnations (my Dad’s favorite flower)
- She planned on placing them on Dad’s grave
I was stupid busy with work projects. Mom came to me in the morning to say she was going out to the cemetery. My first inclination was to let her go alone. I had so much work to do.
Then, as I often do, I reminded myself of that stupid phrase – work/life balance.
The reason I started my own business was to grab some of that work/life balance. And here I was, choosing work.
So I asked Mom if we could go together around lunchtime. Of course, she agreed.
- We went to lunch first
- Then visited my Dad
This morning at 5 a.m., I drove my nephew to the airport to catch a flight for an interview that is important to him.
- Work/life balance
- It doesn’t sound so bad
How about you? Are you teetering on that balance?
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Such a sweet story! Yes, I am achieving balance on most days. Because I have chosen to have an internet biz, it can always move around with me. I am visiting my son this week in Delray Beach, FL after attending a seminar over the weekend in Orlando. work/life/balance. Yes, I’m pretty much there!
p.s. I can relate with your Mom story. My folks were married 62 years when Daddy died 3 years ago. My mother is truly an inspiration to us all!
Glad to hear it, Martha. It’s great when you can manage to keep things in perspective.
Our parents were that rare breed that understood commitment and, you’re right, that’s inspiring. Thanks for sharing your story, Martha.
This blog share is perfect timing for me as I have taken stock this very week to re connect with why I wanted to be self employed! Getting nearer to burn out sometimes means making a choice to step back, take time for yourself and re-prioritise! Otherwise you can start to lose the fun! 🙂 thank you for sharing!
Hi Jenny: Glad I got the timing right. 🙂 You are so right, stepping back is key in discovering what’s most important for us. And I’m all for having fun, too. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your point of view.
Loved the post. But, I can pull your leg as follows…
1. You clearly used subtle hints to imply that you consider work bad and everything else good. (By the way, work is part of life…and, unless you are Mitt Romney, you need to work to live…) Otherwise, your stacks would have been neutral colors- or similar ones, not red and green.
2. Balance is relative. Since you only had a laptop to pack to move in with mom, it implied that you didn’t have much else besides work before coalescing your life with mom…
My feelings are to incorporate the rest of your life into your work (doing what you love, involving your family [perhaps, in the less technical aspects of the enterprise]), and moving your work into your life (showing your family the benefits they derive from your work- life the free trips they get to take due to your travels or revenue generation) or visiting the folks who are alive now because of your inventions…
Any engineer knows you can balance a heavy load against a lighter one by moving the fulcrum…:-)
Roy: I can always count on you for a challenge. 🙂
1) I do not see that I clearly defined work as bad and everything else is good. Life is bad when work is ALL you do, no matter how much you love your work. In my humble opinion. Agree, work is part of life and also agree it can (and should) be a good thing for each of us. I currently love what I do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t tip the scale in the wrong way. Again, in my humble opinion.
The stacks are green & red because that’s what BigStock offered. 🙂
2) Agree balance is relative – LOL about the laptop-wish I hadn’t paid for the rental of that 16-foot moving truck-and believe me, I dumped a TON. 🙂
You would have loved my Dad. He was an engineer. 🙂
Thanks, Roy, for your usual entertaining comments.
BigStock is clearly a biased provider 🙂
All in fun, anyway. Thanks for the entertaining reads 🙂
Clearly, Roy. 🙂
Taken with the fun it was intended. Thanks, Roy.
Cathy, a good way to remember your dad.
Thanks for the reminder to slow down and do what we want once in a while. 🙂
Thanks, Lori. Funny, how we are both blogging about slowing down.;-)
Nice Cathy… for you, your mom, your nephew and your dad… thanks.
Thanks, Anne – on behalf of us all. 🙂
Such a good reminder — Working from home can be chaotic and sometimes we forget the reasons that we left our ‘real’ jobs. I work with my young sons at home and the older of the two sometimes asks me to play with him and then adds, “Oh, wait– Are you working first Momma? I know, we’ll play later…” Somedays we play later, others, I put my project on hold and take the time to live a little– This is after all why I decided to work from home. 🙂
Hi Melissa: Thanks for sharing your story. Isn’t it great when we remember we have that option?
Thanks for stopping by.
I know those feelings but I decided a very long time ago to enjoy life and work. And as I have always been fortunate about working with my passion I have for nearly 20 years enjoyed a life where work was a pleasurable part of my day. And when it stopped being so…I gave up the work because life is more important.
And I understand the little rituals around relationships that matter to our parents generation. I sometimes feel very sad that these days, it is harder to have rituals with younger members of the family.
Thanks for sharing Cathy
Hi Roberta: Thank you so much for your insightful comments. I have always felt we need to respect those little rituals that mean so much to others. I am happy to see that you understand the true value and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.
Thanks, Roberta.
First of all, that’s a fantastic image.
Funny, I reached the same conclusion back in my own CubeWorld days. Those feel-good initiatives come across to me like Big Brother, because I’m so anti-authority by nature. Just let me do my job, m’kay, and I’ll decide how to live my life.
There’s a great new book called Take The Stairs, whose author I had the pleasure of profiling for Speaker magazine a few weeks ago. Rory’s theory about work-life balance is that it’s questionable/impossible because it implies equality. It’s not about spending enough time on a given activity, it’s about *when* you focus on it. I thought it was a brilliant insight.
I highly recommend his book–very motivational and lots of practical tips on increasing self-discipline.
Hey, the Doctor’s in the house. 🙂 Nice to see you here, Jake. Thanks so much for the book recommendation, Jake. I love new finds. And thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your weekend.
Cathy, you were wise to put the work aside for a little while. I’m like that too, though, when I feel my obligations piling up. I don’t want to let anyone down! But most of all, I don’t want to disappoint the ones I love most. After all, it’s the people in your life who are most dear, not the projects.
Hi Ashley: Good to see you here. Thanks for sharing your point of view. I think we are all wired a certain way (for any number of reasons), but I find if you listen to your gut, you’ll make the right choice.
Thanks for stopping by, Ashley.
I often struggle with work/life balance, whatever that may be. But I feel that my work is really so important in my life. I discovered this to be the case when I was a new mom. Being away from work for so many months was depressing for me. I need the intellectual challenge and was unsatisfied without it. I feel more balanced when I have both work and family life, even if I spend too much time doing one or the other at times
Hi Kristen: I love my work, too, but it doesn’t mean I always make the right decisions. I cannot imagine not having my work so I understand the value of both work and family. I certainly don’t think we should beat ourselves up over the decisions we make.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Kristen.
Hi Cathy,
The work life balance aspect is OK fro me but the imbalance for me which I have to constantly keep correcting is overwhelm at the massive learning curve which seems to become bigger daily.
Nice post. very enjoyable reading.
Madonna
Madonna
Hi Madonna: I know what you mean by the overwhelm. When I started my business, I had plenty of times I felt like that. The good news is the longer I’ve been doing this, the less I feel that way.
Thanks for stopping by and the kind words.