What if the Point Isn’t Balance?
It's triage
The worry over work-life balance can sometimes be sort of a humble-brag. My work is necessary, and my life has meaning, how do I find the balance between two crucial things? Calgon, take me away. (IYKYK.) Among the problems you can have in life, work-life balance isn’t the worst. I’d argue not working, or not having a life, are worse. So are other things. Your country could be invaded by a menacing foreign power. Your air traffic controller might be out on an Uber Eats run. You could fall into a well full of snakes. If I was stuck in a well full of snakes, not being able to leave work at 5 sharp would suddenly seem less important than, say, snakes.
So, work-life balance isn’t the most dire problem in the world, but I’d argue the underlying concern is still in a roundabout way a life-or-death issue. Why? Because once your basic needs are met, the most valuable thing in the world isn’t money, it’s time. We only get so much time before we die, and we want to spend it doing things that we want to do, and staying late to fix a coworker’s mess is less enticing than being on time to your kid’s basketball game, or going to trivia night with your friends, or getting to your Pilates class. All we have is the present, and we don’t want to waste it. Death is a well of inevitable snakes. (Stitch it on a throw pillow.)
I suspect that the notion of “work-life balance” gained a foothold in our discourse because “work-life balance” is a phrase that rolls off the tongue cleverly and offers a sense of agency (Hey, I have options, workplace!), but I worry it doesn’t properly frame the issue, and if we don’t frame an issue properly, it’s harder to solve.
The idea of “work-life balance” implies that balance can be achieved or held. If you are able to do it, great. Many struggle, which makes me think that maybe “balance” shouldn’t be the goal. Balance implies that at some point things will equal out – that they can be sustained in equilibrium. Balance as a physical concept is precise and measurable. But life is messy and unpredictable, unless you’ve chosen to disengage from the world, which offers its own set of risks, such as death1 and cable news.
The feeling that we stress about is being pulled in too many directions and feeling the need to go in all of them. Maybe what we ought to strive for isn’t balance, but triage. This triage means prioritizing how your time is best used so you can achieve some sense of sustained tranquility. (You thought I would say happiness, but happiness comes and goes. Tranquility is achievable and offers longevity if maintained properly. It’s the Honda Accord of feelings.)
Triage means being the field commander of your life and giving orders that say some things are important, and other things are less important, and sometimes the important things are work things, and sometimes they are life things, and you make the calls that need to be made without feeling too bad about it. Often the command is noble, like, “Spend more time with your children.” Other times, it’s self-care, like, “Hide from your children for five minutes.” Either way, you’re in charge. The answer isn’t trying to have it all. The answer is not feeling guilty about wanting the things you want and letting go of things that matter less.
Here’s where being Catholic and from the Midwest is a real kick in the rear for this guy because saying no feels like you let down the baby Jesus AND forgot to check the neighbor’s mail while they were on vacation.
Saying no isn’t guilt-inducing failure.
It’s chaos management.
When you face chaos, the goal is to get to the other side while holding onto your integrity. The real question we’re wrestling with here is deciding what holds meaning. What we choose in moments of high tension tells ourselves and the world who we are. When we fret about balance, I suspect what we’re really getting at are much deeper issues that we avoid thinking about but are forced to confront only when we’re starting to lose it. Who are we? What are our values? And why do we matter? The big questions. They’re easy to ignore when we’re locked in a pleasant pattern of being. We’re forced to address them when life slaps us around.
Why am I bringing this up? My kids are 10 now. In all likelihood, half of the time we spend with them is in the past. We have eight years left of them at home (probably), and then they’re mostly on their own. It’s not like we’ll never see them again, but it’s different as they get older and become more independent. It’s the second act in our house, and the play will be over sooner than we think. So I’m forced to think a lot about what matters, what I value, how I spend my time, how those decisions impact my wife and children, my health, what it means for work, and I get to feeling pulled in a lot of different directions.
You can stress out trying to get to a balance you can never achieve. So, on top of feeling pulled in many directions, you feel disappointed. What turned me around on this was one night, I took my dog out for a walk, and I was muttering to myself, gesturing like I was trying to land a plane, and my dog looked at me with deep feelings of pity — which is rich, coming from someone whose main joy in life is eating literally anything off the sidewalk. I pictured myself in that moment from my neighbor’s window and thought, “How did I get here?” Then I sort of worked it backwards, and where I landed with it is the essay you just read.
I share this because I suspect I’m not alone, and many of you feel this in some way. The real lack of balance isn’t between work and life. It’s between who we are now and who we’re trying to be. The battlefield is our calendar. Our weapons are caffeine and hope.
Read more:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/even-a-little-socializing-is-linked-to-longevity
Triage, yes! This is a banger:
“ Spend more time with your children.” Other times, it’s self-care, like, “Hide from your children for five minutes.”
Edited;
I needed this. Thank you.