Is there something like work-life balance?
Some people say there is no such thing: work-life balance. The reason they give is that work is part of life and because they belong together, – because one implies the other, there can be no balance between the two.
I only partly agree. Yes, work is always part of our lives. Even if we are fortunate enough to do the work we love, lucky to love the work we do or just work in our or someone else’s business to make a living, there are even more areas than just work that make up our lives.
There are also our social or emotional relationships, there is our health, our personal and professional development and how well we are connected spiritually with source. All those aspects impact on each other and together make what we experience as our life. The correct expression should therefore be ‘work-intellect-social life-health-emotional relationships-spirituality-balance.
You will agree that this term sounds a bit silly, wouldn’t you? I would love to propose using ‘w.i.s.h.e.s in balance’ or simply life balance or even work-life harmony instead.
But no matter how we want to call it, what we ultimately always strive for is living a fulfilled life, which means balance and harmony between all aspects.
Living a balanced or harmonious life means having resources to relief, manage or prevent stress and remembering to refer back to them when necessary, knowing how maintain a comfortable harmony between our personal and professional responsibilities and having some fun, joy and bliss along the way.
Transition Guidance is passionate about work-life balance, life balance or work-life harmony (however you choose to call the opposite of a stressful life) and offers many options for stress relief, stress management and stress prevention.
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This post has 2 comments
August 7th, 2009
As an alternative to work/life balance
try Life in Rhythm instead; check out the new book Your Life in Rhythm
August 7th, 2009
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for your comment. I can see your point. Living in rhythm to me is going with the flow, adapting to the rhythm of life. This absolutely does make sense.
However, call it a life in rhythm or a life in balance, it does not make a difference in the result:
Living in harmony and balance or rhythm requires strategies and motivation to get there, which can vary for different people, depending on the status quo and the commitment to get there.
Neither balance nor rhythm is ‘flying to us’. Any change – by choice or necessity – is depending on taking action.
I also do not see ‘balance’ in the sense of giving equal attention to every aspect of life, but instead as the opposite of allowing stress to take over.
In future articles I will be posting about balance that comes from living in accordance with the ‘bagua’, which is a tool from feng shui, referring to the never ending ‘circle of life’, the principle of yin and yang and the five elements.
Balance or rhythm are not excluding each other, but complementing. More important than the discussion how to call it is offering opportunities to get there.
Thanks for your contribution to offer another way.