Go to work and live your life.
The topic of work-life balance is a big one and I believe one of the most important things that a person has to come to grips with in order to have a truly 'happy' life.
When things get out of balance it is difficult to maintain any kind of stability. Just like riding a bike, walking on a balance beam, or dancing on point, it is impossible to do without balance.
There are two factors in balance that I learned from my time in the theater from the dancers. That the connection to the ground is all important and that forward motion helps in sustaining balance. Obviously the evenness of keeping left and right with equal weight is paramount in balance as well.
One thing I would do in my teaching is have a "life" day. It is the day I would talk to the students about their lives and what how to make sense of it moving forward in their careers. Not only in college, but there after.
One of the main principles I taught was that everyone is in business for themselves, meaning, that no matter what you are doing to get paid, what you earn and how you manage it is the business you are in. As 'employees' or 'business owners' we are working towards the success of the business or our own business. But it is also important to realize that your own personal "Me" business is all about making sure you succeed in your financial life and to always look at your finances as if it was a business.
An important part of life is to find a partner who will share life with you and help you build a family or family-like environment. It is a system of co-dependence where people depend on you and you depend on people. The family, or family-like social environment, is the primary social structure of a society. Without a strong family structure life is going to be a lot more difficult even though on the surface it may seem more complicated.
Knowing how to build a good family is part of life's important tasks. I say this not because I was good at it but because I wasn't. I have experienced coming from a good family and how much that has blessed my existence but because of the trouble I experienced within that family I was truly afraid to commit to a family. On top of that I was always worried that I wouldn't make enough money to support one properly.
But, what does this have to do with "Work-Life" balance?
Depending on the career choice it isn't uncommon for the career to be an all consuming endeavor. The higher level you strive for the more difficult it is to not let that dominate your existence. Some career paths seem to swallow people up in the amount of time and energy it takes to succeed at it. In some professions I believe that the demands of the job push it past a safety zone of performance.
The American work ethic is one of the best and one of the worst in the world. People seem to be "owned" by their jobs. Everything they do is built around the requirements of the job, the employer, the company, or the institution. I know for myself that my mind was completely dominated by my career. Everything revolved around it. I tried my best for it not to be that way, but it was that way. I think that the decisions I made stretched the lines of possibilities to far and when that happens the bonds eventually break. I don't think it is wise to have your work and your life far apart from each other. You have to know when the whistle blows, when to stop, when to put on your slippers and have dinner.
I have been listening to an audiobook about the Q anon thing. It is rather alarming. How easy it is for people to get sucked into something and have it transform their thinking completely. This is really a brainwashing thing and it can happen so easily. However, I am not here to talk about that because it is like a black hole, once you go in you never come out. But what it has made me consider is the amount of brainwashing that can occur in careers when you are seemingly asked to "Drink the Kool-Aid" and subscribe to a way of thinking or acting. This is a danger because if it happens in your work the normality of life goes away and you have no more balance in your life.
My sense of responsibility for my employer and the job is very high. I want to do the best job I can for them. I have a tendency to let it take over my life. Even though it is how I make a living it is important to stop allowing a job to take over my life, which it usually always does. Even now after all of these year I still have a hard time knowing how to "have fun" on my own. I always feel like I have to work. In a sense it seems that living my life is all about knowing what I want to do outside of work and career to be happy. "Do" is the operative word here. Action, meaning activity, is what is meant by doing. It doesn't mean laying on a couch and watching TV, movies or whatever.
I have reluctantly been a part of network marketing companies and related types of independent contractor businesses. This 'industry' or 'profession' is almost like a cult. It isn't a cult, but it certainly promotes 'drinking the Kool-Aid' of the company's ideology. There is an element of "convincing" people to become a part of it and do it, for their own good, so to speak, and become part of the family. It is like a religion in some ways. I have to say that being involved in any kind of recruiting has rubbed me the wrong way, especially when it comes to things monetary. However, my point here isn't about any of that, it is about the fact that it can take over you life. It can take over how you look at the world and how you react to the world. Everyone becomes a prospect. Everything is about "it". The whole concept of being "All in" is just not healthy.
Never be "All in" in anything. Why? Because it tips the balance. It pulls you away from your life's forward path. No matter what you decide to do in life and no matter how hard it is to do to be successful it is absolutely imperative that you maintain balance in life.
You have to know when to "punch in and punch out".
I absolutely know how difficult this is. I could write like this all day, but I have to find the finish line. I have to push publish and be done with it then go out and live my life...whatever that means these days.
We don't work for the weekend, we work till the work ends and then live our lives.