Work-Life-Balance, what is that?
By: Deirdre Clark
My list of things to do:
Drop my daughter off at school
Pick up my suits from the dry cleaners
Go to the drug store and pick up prescriptions (that keep me from being depressed about working myself into the ground)
Pack my bag (with comfortable clothes)
Check the weather channel to prepare for the temperature change
Drive to the airport
Stand in the security line
Get accosted by a stampede of rude people who have no regard for anyone besides themselves
Fight to get on the plane
Fight to get your luggage in the bins (if you are unlucky and not first class)
Fly to Tampa
Start the deplaning process and pray you don’t get into an argument with a rude passenger who feels they need to get off the plane faster than anyone else
Prepare a report and power point presentation
Call and tuck my daughter in via telephone or webcam
Go to bed (and hope I can sleep to perform my best at my meeting tomorrow)
Wake up and 7 am and get to my meeting by 9 am.
Did I mention this is only Monday…I have 4 more days of work I haven’t begun to tell you about.
That is what my list looks like. Yours may be longer, more in depth, more or less demanding. No matter what the list…we are all required to give more and expect less. Achieving any sort of sustainable work life balance is quite a task. Twenty years ago, there was no mention of work life balance anywhere. That is because everyone had it. The workforce tended to work 37.5 hrs per week, employees didn’t take work home with them and when you were home, that is it you were home. That was time with your family, it was not negotiable. Collectively, as a work force we spend a great deal of time working past our required 40 hrs per week, commuting ridiculous distances, working on weekends, sleeping next to our black berries all the while praying our jobs are not eliminated because someone who does not have a family is willing to work twice is hard, for half the pay. When did having family become a hindrance? Shouldn’t our families be our rewards?
As the technology age expanded so did our obsession with gadgets and the demand for our time. Employer obsession with productivity, metrics and ways they can literally squeeze the second to last breath we have. We have begun a set of systems that we will never be able to reclaim our lives dues to pagers, cell phones, email, Ipods, social networking systems…where does it end? Does anyone wish they could go back to life before all of these trinkets supposedly made our lives easier? I long and dream for the days that my life wouldn’t be so complicated; when I can choose without guilt not to answer my cell phone, request that my friends send me cards in the mail and handwritten letters, actually take time to know my neighbors and spend more time with the people I love. Life is so very short. It is a precious commodity that you cannot buy, sell or steal. Let us start a movement, let us take back our lives and live for ourselves, just a little.
Join me monthly as we assist our readers in achieving work-life-balance for today’s hectic and demanding society. If you keep giving all of what you have away, you will have nothing left for you.
