Work life balance, we have all heard about it. This thing most of us want to get a hold of but, in many times, not succeeding with. I struggle with it everyday.

 

We want to find balance, it’s like talking about going to the gym after your new years resolution, something you talk about but never do anything about. It’s seen as a natural challenge of life that all of us need practice, something that comes with the package of life, to struggle with the balance. Is there another way of living?

 

The expression “work life balance” put an equal sign between work and life. What that imposes is that they weight the same amount, work as well as life. Think about that for a second, work that weigh the same amount as… life. On one side you have career, money, co-workers and bosses, assignments to finish and e-mails to answer. On the other side you have friends, family, love, books and movies, traveling, wine and good conversations, the list could go on.

 

I would argue that they don’t weigh the same. I would say that work is something you do in order to either survive (get money so you can get a roof over your head or keep your stomach full) or something you do in order to sustain life (keep up a certain standard). If you are not working out of those reasons initially then I would describe it as leisure, and then we are talking about something different.

 

Keeping this in mind, work might be something we all need to do at certain times. Closely connected to this is our productivity, could it be so that if we are more productive - we need less time doing the work, and time for actual life-time. Seeing this from a capitalistic worldview, this thought is a genius trick - work harder and more, for the same amount of money. You’ll get more stuff done, chasing the illusion that you eventually will have time to be free. This also flows over into our free time. If you meet a colleague after the weekend, you might hear them say: “it was a great weekend!”, they were so productive - that is to say, they got a lot of things done. In this way we even see our free time as work, as something to be productive in.

 

Would your productivity at anytime be enough? At the factory, at least there were clear lines between work and free time - and strict rules on when you work and not. But today, many of our jobs are built on assignments that you have responsibility over. You choose how to structure work time, but have individual responsibility of getting the task done. The “creative” industry that I find myself in, makes this even harder - this is a place where one sees work as meaningful in itself. Work becomes the identity builder - the meaning builder that gives us a purpose to get up in the morning. In this world, productivity and more work is always wanted and possible.

 

Is there any way out of this? Maybe setting frames for myself? To write down what the project or assignment would look like if I were to do the minimum amount of work, to get the work done. What would change if I would have infinite time working?

 

I don’t want to care so much - i want to feel relaxed and not take work so serious, but it is very hard. It’s what everyone around me talks about, it’s the first identity marker that tells new people about who I am. I am my work and work is me.

 

I have learned to like it in some ways, when work takes over, when I get caught up in work, reach a feeling of flow, a state where the world around me disappears. The problem is that, in many times, it’s driven by anxiety, stress and bad self-esteem. I can never do enough! I wonder, is there a state where these feeling would be driven by lust, by interest or joy? Could it be, that not taking work so serious - look beyond work, career and status - stop and see what I already have, in order to relax and focus more on leisure and what truly matters?

 

Do I see myself finding an answer? No, as soon as I understood that I constantly change, there will never be a single answer. Just as quick as I find a way of living in my everyday, it might slip away.

 

This is my struggle - on how to find a balance between work, life, productivity and lust.