Unpopular Opinion: Work/Life Balance Doesn’t Exist

Two years ago, I attended a seminar where the speaker dismissed the idea of work/life balance. In his opinion, work/life balance doesn’t exist because it is almost impossible to separate work from life - and vice versa. I agree.

When you’re at work, your personal life seeps in as you have conversations with colleagues, decide on meeting times or try to stick to your values. When you’re at home, you observe issues or opportunities that may apply to your work. No matter how hard you try to completely shut one out from the other, they are a part of who you are.

The reality is as we try to balance work and life, we subconsciously create conflict between the two. More often than not, that balance actually tilts towards one or the other. To meet our expectations at work and in life, we end up prioritizing one and sacrificing the other.

So, I agree work/life balance doesn’t exist.
The idea of a balance suggests that one is negative while the other is positive—but there’s no truth to that. Sorting out the details of your life is essential to your well-being. Succeeding at what you do at work, is good for your personal and professional growth. Neither of these two is negative.

Knowing this, I accept the reality that there are trade-offs in life. Life is filled with conflicting responsibilities, discords, and harmony, priorities, and compromise. The decisions we make when we are at work affect our lives outside work. Likewise, how we spend our time at home or with friends can impact our productivity at work.

What truly matters is the quality of the time spent at work or outside of work.

I have learned that by being diligent in my work, I can be fully present when I spend time with those who matter. The quality of the time I spend with my family and friends enriches and empowers me to be at my best when I work. Yet, as I go, I try to be as flexible as possible.

Instead of trying to balance work and life, we may be better served by focusing on what matters when it matters. We should consider how we choose to spend the moments we find ourselves in. We ought to focus on fully investing in people who matter and let these relationships inspire us to do good work. More so, the work we do should be so good that the time we spend away from it feels like well-deserved time-off.

I’m not suggesting that work is more important than life. Instead, I’m imploring you to accept the reality that they both affect each other and as such, you should work hard on both while you can—and let them fuel each other.

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