We hear so much today about achieving a work-life balance, don’t we? However, there is a problem with the concept in that unless we have absolute commonality, a ‘line in the sand’ so to speak, we are never going to achieve a definitive perception that works for us all, are we?
The mosaic-like, the crossword puzzle, snakes-and-ladders like lives we lead are incredibly difficult to juggle, let alone balance, as we can say and do as we wish, but then someone else comes along, and what they do tips us over the edge of our master plan. So while the concept has merit, I’m going to say that it is a Nirvana, a Xanadu, a myth, a fairy tale, as far distant as an unrequited love is always destined to be, our, and others imperfections and failures doing to our desire for a work-life balance that works, doing to us what icebergs did for unsinkable ships.
The problem, from a really basic perspective, is that, in seeking a work-life balance, is that it’s all a one-way street isn’t it? I mean, who would choose work over life anyway? However, if we look deeper, it’s not usually a question of choosing one over the other, but how much you are willing to put into each: the level of commitment. Whatever we are doing, we only have a certain amount of that commitment – petrol, if you like – to use, and the distribution of it is what we need to work on. That’s my view anyway. As you’ll see though, in life and even literature, as Angie Wade says in her best Teeside accent, “Everyone has their twopenn’eth.”
I firmly believe the quest for a work-life balance can never work, and not because I don’t want it to, but because our intent will surely fall at the first hurdle, either our spouse, our family, or our boss, because as sure as ‘eggs is eggs,’ they will all have very different ideas as to how the ‘line-in-the-sand,’ of your work-life balance must move to accommodate theirs. Like one of my favourite literary characters, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, you are tilting at windmills from the very outset.
Like him, you have an impossible dream, for which you will fight an unbeatable foe, bear unbearable sorrow, and run where only brave men go. Fighting a wrong that cannot be assuaged you will love pure and chaste, but from afar, and keep trying with the weariest of arms. You will continue your quest, however hopeless, however far, without question, without pause, willing to confront Shaitan in heaven’s name. You will know you have given of your best in a glorious quest, and you will be at peace, calm, maybe scorned and scarred, having given your last ounce in seeking to reach the unreachable star, that line-in-the-sand.
Novelist Nora Roberts reflects that achieving balance is about recognising we all must all be jugglers or plate spinners, and that “the trick is to know which of them are rubber, and which are glass,” while Irish comedian Dave Allen succinctly observed that the key is to, “do anything, but not everything.”
Country and Western star Dolly Parton displays a similar eloquence, saying “Never get so busy living that you don’t have a life.” More caustic is one of the world’s richest men in Warren Buffet, who espouses that “You have to keep control, of your time, and that means saying no! If you can’t say no you’re letting others rule your life, and that’s the worst kind of investment.”
So, I regret it is a journey that can only end in tragedy, as our deeply personal, evolutionary journey, becomes mired in the failures and machinations of those around us. In fact, let’s just forget about the ‘unreachable star,’ leaving that to Josh Groban, Andy Williams and the others. Instead, let’s be mature enough to strive, reflect, learn, and grow individually. After all, we are all individuals, why waste it?
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