Work is life and life is work; it's all balance

Late for work by Eneas via Flickr

We are all products of what we have experienced in the past. Not only our own past but also the pasts of all those that have gone before us and have influenced us. This applies to all aspects of ourselves, the world and cultures around us. Nearly all ways of doing things (eating, working, relaxing, communication etc) are habitual; they have been learnt and adopted by us. Some of those habits are beneficial, others are not. Some enhance our own lives and that of the world; others move us further away from where we truly would like to be. One habit that has been passed down to us from previous generations is that of our style of working. Unfortunately since the beginning of the industrial revolution life seems to have speeded up both in a production sense as well as a consumerist one. The day no longer unfolds with rhythms of nature and of the seasons but is forced by a clock and the pressures of ‘the working week’ into a semblance of a life. Modern life is something which for many does not actually include ‘the working week’ but begins when the worker arrives home.

Many are so consumed with making money to live the life they want that they forget that in making the money they are actually living their life. Work is life and life is work; it is all balance. There is not a balance between work and a separate life there is but one life; the balance is created when we work and play in accordance with who we really are meant to be. It is not a life to be lived ‘in two halves’ (as the sports commentator said) but a life to be lived as a whole. By not enjoying the working side of your life you rob yourself of a large chunk of your life

Say you start working age 20 and work until you are 65 and you work a 40 hour week with 4 weeks off each year for holidays.

45 (years) x 48 (weeks of yearly paid work) = 2160 weeks

2160 x 40 (hours weekly work) = 86 400 hours

86 400 hours = 3600 days = approx 9.8 years of your life

That would mean by the time you ‘retire’ at the age of 65 you will possibly have spent almost 10 years of your life being bored and unfulfilled, and that is not counting the travelling to and from!

So choose today to honour your life as a whole. If it’s not possible to change employment to something more fulfilling at the moment at least enjoy what you are doing. All things have enjoyment in them somewhere ~ go find yours.