18 Days to Book Launch/Signing!

In Hebrew, 18 means LIFE.  These days everyone seems to be worried about Work/Life Balance.

Books have been written about it, experts talk about it, gurus advise on it.  It seems everyone has an opinion on what the balancing act is and how we are supposed to achieve it.

Yeah, well, I might as well jump in too.

The problem is, I don’t agree with the principle.

To me, the idea that we should balance our “Work” with our “Life” makes some suppositions I’m just not ready to swallow.  Namely, that the two things, work and life, are separate.  After all, if we’re trying to ‘balance’ them, they must be on either end of the plank right?

I know, I’m probably taking things too literally, but bear with me for a moment and ask yourself a different question.  What if we’re not supposed to balance them, but instead create a life with and from our work; or put another way, do work that encompasses our life?

Seth Godin has said:

 ‘Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.’

Interesting idea isn’t it?

What if instead of focusing on the idea that unless we balance these two things we’re going to have to give up one to have more of the other, we instead worked on having one that included the other.  One that was built upon the other.  One in which we found joy or as the French say, Joie De Vivre’ (Joy of Life).

Perhaps if we spend more time asking ourselves what it would take to find our passion in our work, or to fulfill our passion in new or different work? What if we asked how we could create a life for ourselves where we found our work engaging and fulfilling and lived in such a way that our lives were fulfilled as well?  What if we asked a question like what would it take to live a life we didn’t need a vacation from?

Maybe it isn’t a balancing act at all.  Maybe we should focus on LIVING our lives and not try to escape from them or spend time worrying about the time we feel we’re not living them at all.