The phrase ‘work-life balance’ suggests that work isn’t a part of life and that perhaps an essential part of who we are is somewhere else, waiting for us to clock off. And yet so many of us find ourselves here, at work, feeling all the feelings and trying to juggle this bit with the other meaningful parts of our lives.
Like any balancing act, we are rarely in a state of harmony for long – it’s an active process of constant adjustment, overcorrection, ebb and flow. And it’s easy for the work part to get stuck in overdrive, sometimes from sheer necessity, sometimes driven by cultural expectations.
The benefits are easy to focus on and easy to desire. Income to pay bills and solve problems. A sense of meaning, of contribution. Perhaps status or security. A gift to our future self in career capital or savings. An answer to the question “So what do you do?”, which is all too often shorthand for “Who are you?”
When we slice work off from the rest of our existence, we risk creating unnecessary barriers and masks that are exhausting to uphold. It can become harder to access our full self, our full range of resources and insights.
Yet how we show up at work is how we show up to our life. It’s one more place where we learn a great deal about ourselves, about others, about how to navigate the space between. It can top up or deplete our sense of connection, competence or control. It can be a vehicle for pain and compassion, for resentment and love. Like the rest of life, work throws us challenges and opportunities, the unexpected and the utterly mundane. And perhaps these are the things we really want to keep in balance.
Helen Mentha 