Wikipedia
defines “work” as one’s career or profession. It defines “lifestyle” as one’s
social life, intellect, psychological well-being, spiritual beliefs, health, and
recreation.
Let’s paint a mental image
of Work-Life Balance. To start, let’s draw one of those plastic scales - the
kind we used back in elementary science class to measure different gram
weights. Now let’s add in 24 grams (or 24 hours) of life activities.
We can start with the
“Work” side: A 12g metal weight labeled, “Career.” Place that weight into the left tray. That side will now likely slam down to the counter.
Okay, on to the “Life”
side: Six, 2g metal weights labeled, “Social Life,” “Intellect,” “Psychology,”
“Spirituality,” “Health,” and “Recreation.” Slowly, as they are added to the right tray, the
scale should see-saw into equilibrium. The one big 12-gram “Work” weight should balance out the six mini 2-gram “Life” weights. And our image of Work-Life Balance is complete.
There we go! Work-Life
Balance perfectly defined!
…Right?
Actually, I’m sure that
most of you are reading and thinking, wrong.
And you are right about that. The
first way that WorkLifeBalance.com introduces the topic is by stating, “Work
Life Balance does not mean an equal balance.”
What this means is that
the ideal image of what work-life balance looks like depends on who it is
that’s imagining it.
For this blog, I want to
share my personal idea of work-life balance, and invite others to recognize
their own opinions.
So often we wonder where
the time goes. What if we first decide where we want it to go, and then direct
it to go there?
When I look into my future,
it’s very blurry. I don’t know who my husband will be. I don’t know what my job
will be. I don’t know where I’m going to live.
But I do know how I want
to feel. I want to feel successful. And, to me, success means growing to become
the best version of yourself in all aspects of your life. To me, success is
finding a career that you are passionate about, without forgetting the
importance of downtime. It means loving and caring for your family, without
taking time away from personal hobbies. It means having faith in a higher power,
without ceasing to remain physically fit.
To me success has no
measurements. To me, success is happiness.
I want to be happy at my
job. I want to be excited to wake up on Monday mornings. I want to be
challenged to improve my skillset, and rewarded with personal growth. I want to
be proud of what I do each day, and know that I have a purpose in my career.
I want to be happy with my
family. I want to love and trust and support my husband. I want to care for and
nurture my children. I want to go on family vacations, cook family dinners,
coach my kids' soccer teams. I want to see my family members smile, and
know that I am a part of their joy.
I want to be happy with my
health. I want to eat right and exercise regularly. I want to stay physically
fit, as well as spiritually connected. I want to believe in miracles, so that I
never lose faith, so that I keep an open mind, so that I remind myself that
anything’s possible.
I don’t know how to paint
this image. I don’t know where I’d start, what kind of scale I’d use, or how
many gram weights to take into account.
But I do know that this is
how I want to spend my time. And if strive for this image of balance, I know I will be successful in my own, personal way.
I thought that your blog about “An Image of Work-Life Balance” was very relatable to the reader. You painted a mental picture of a scale that equally balances work with lifestyle. On the scale you originally painted, everything equally balanced out. But we both know that sometimes, work and lifestyle do not equally balance out. Most of the time it doesn’t. Sometimes we are going to spend much more time on work than anything else, and sometimes that will hold true for our lifestyles- depending upon what point of our lives we are in. I like that you said that work and lifestyle don’t have to balance out and that we shouldn’t expect them to.
ReplyDeleteSuccess, defined by you, is growing to become the best version of yourself in all aspects of your life. I think that that is a good goal to have, although it would be very difficult to reach that point in which you are happy with every aspect in your life. I know this does not have to mean that everything is perfect, just that you are content with how things are. You painted this beautiful picture of the successes you want in your life and how you are unsure about how you are going to get there, but that you are going to try to make it happen. I would love to think like you when you said, “success has no measurements. To me, success is happiness.” It would be wonderful for me to get to that point in life, it just feels like it will be hard to reach that ultimate point of happiness. And I know that makes it seem as though I’m viewing the glass as “half empty” but I just think it is a lot easier to wish for these things then to actually make them happen. But I understand your point that it is important that you try- try to reach that point of being content and happy in your life.
I really enjoyed reading this post, and my favorite part was definitely the analogy of the plastic scale. I like how you labeled the six 2g metal weights, and I agree with the idea that it is not necessarily an equal balance, and I would even go on to say that I think the two sides of the scale are always in some sort of imbalance that is constantly changing. As you said, the work life-balance differs for everyone. Some people are workaholics opposed to some people who don't have much of a "work life, and spend their time more on the "life" side of the scale.
ReplyDeleteI thought your image of work-life balance was relatable to mine, however as you said, it varies from person to person. In my work-life balance I completely agree with you in that I want to be successful no matter what. I would say that success to me would be achieving my goals, providing for my family, living comfortably, all the while being happy doing whatever it is that I am doing. Personally, I can't relate success to religion or fitness at all, it is more of a feeling to me, one of being content with life as a whole. My work-life balance would also include me reaching a state of spiritual enlightenment, which is something that is very important to me. To me, that is reaching a self-realization which I believe means finding one's inner self through psychological or spiritual self-striving. But getting back to my point, similarly to you, I don't know where I am going to be 10, even 5 years from now. I just know that I do want to have a healthy balance between work and life. I know that it won't be an easy balance to find however I believe that over time, with trial and error, it will be something that I can eventually achieve.
Hey Christina,
ReplyDeleteAs usual I chose to read your blog to provide my feedback on for class. Throughout this entire semester I have followed and read all of your blogs because they always hit so close to home. I find that your semester long topic on work-life balance is so prevalent to my life today. As a college student trying to balance two jobs, school and manage to have personal time for myself, family and friends, it is not always an easy thing to do. In fact it is never an easy thing to do, and as of lately I have been finding my own personal schedule more conflicting than usual.
Your blogs have truly given me something to think about as I am one of those people who constantly ask themselves “Where did the time go?” However, is it one thing that you said in particular that made me think I should never have to ask where my time is going. You said, “So often we wonder where the time goes. What if we first decide where we want it to go, and then direct it to go there?” Taking a look at my own life right now I must admit that I am not happy with how my time is going and that I need to make some changes so that I am where I want to be. As the days go by each morning I wake up I feel more and more tired and as though I am not getting enough sleep. It feels as though school is no longer my number one priority and that I am putting most of my time into work. Overall, this is true and thinking about my own true priorities, I have decided to work towards quitting one of my jobs and only maintaining one. This would allow me to be able to have more free time to complete homework assignments on time, receive more sleep, and have a better attitude about my day as I will be in more control of my time. To me that is happiness.
Jasmine Booker