Work-Life Balance
A great deal has been written about work-life balance in the UK. What does it mean? Is it just paid lip-service by employers to look good in the employment market? Is it a real issue, or just in people's heads?
Certainly for me it is a real live issue - working hard and getting a reasonable reward, but not seeing my wife much (who also works hard) and losing those interests that I used to have. Practice makes perfect, but if you don't have time to practice then you lose skills and interest and ultimately you are back to square one on the learning curve. (Don't you just hate mixed metaphors! Surely I'm either back to square one on the board or at the bottom of the learning curve - but hey, you get the picture).
But is work different from life? To many work is life and surely that is the great reward - if you can turn your hobbies into your work then the distinction between work and life fades doesn't it?
If you can find your passion then working hard and for long hours will seem pleasurable and energise you rather than drain you. I've found that to be true for me - it is just quite a challenge to find what you are really passionate about!
Any ideas?
Cash Rich Time Poor
You might well be reading this thinking if only I was cash rich - why would you worry about being time poor?! Wouldn't that be a nice problem to have!
On the other hand you may be like me working hard and doing long hours to get the job done, commuting at the start and end of the day, collapsing in front of the tv too tired to do much else. The weekends seem to be more about catching up with chores at home and catching up on sleep rather than living the life you really wanted.
How did you get into this position - well you followed the requirements of society to get all the trappings of success and wealth - the good job, the car, the house - and the mortgage, credit card debts, stress and pressure.
Sure not all of this is true for everyone, but you get the idea. So are you happy with this state of affairs? I'm not.
A few years under my belt I realise that I'm not bad at what I do - I create more value for my employer than they pay me (this will almost always be the case otherwise you get fired) - but I don't get any of the value created myself.
This is where the target is then: to work for myself to get the value from my work for myself - and in the process get Cash Rich and Time Rich!
ARe these you aspirations as well? Perhaps you are already on the way - let me know!
I'll be posting a number of things to this blog over the coming weeks about what I have already done to step towards this and how successful - or otherwise - I am being!
