The Balance Act
There is no such thing as work-life balance. There is one life, lived in many spaces. Four things two weeks in Hawaii taught me about protecting it.
I wrote this on my first day back at work after two weeks in Hawaii in June 2023.
Recharged. Reinvigorated. Full of energy.
And thinking about one phrase that is thrown around so much that it has lost all meaning.
Work-life balance.
I know I'm not the first person to say this. But we got it all wrong.
There is no such thing as work-life balance. Because there is just one life and you are living it in multiple spaces.
Within that one life, we work. We play. We eat. We sleep. We are moms and dads, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons. We clock in, and we clock out. But we never stop living.
So stop trying to balance life against work.
You only have one life. You need to protect it.
Here's what two weeks in Hawaii reminded me.
- Live every moment. Be present. Enjoy.
Your presence makes memories. And memories come from being present in the moment. They come from closing your eyes in the middle of something beautiful and deciding to store it. Taking a mental snapshot of that moment in time. Capture it. Store it.
I was deliberate about this in Hawaii.
We all know memories fade. It happens. And I was conscious of this.
So I kept closing my eyes, taking mental pictures, pressing them somewhere into my heart. Trying to slow the fade. I don't know if it works. But I know it felt like faithfulness to the moment.
You see the value of a moment in your child's eyes. You feel it in your spouse's embrace. You relive it through childhood memories that still make you smile decades later.
Don't miss it because you were somewhere else while you were there.
- It's okay to reconnect, even when you're supposed to be disconnected.
I am telling you this because I don't want you to feel guilty.
I did it in Hawaii. Something came up. I plugged back in for a bit. And then unplugged.
Don't beat yourself up.
But also, don't let one moment of reconnection become an excuse to stay connected. Do what you need to do, and then go back to being present. No guilt, no fuss.
Life is already unpredictable enough. One email doesn't have to unravel two weeks.
- If you are deliberate about it, you can disconnect
This one surprised me. I thought it couldn't be done. I was wrong.
Disconnecting is a decision.
It is your choice. It doesn't happen by accident. Set the boundary. Hold it. And discover — maybe for the first time in a while — what it feels like to be fully in your own life.
- Don't compartmentalize your life. You were never meant to.
You have one life. It includes your work, your family, your rest, your play. All of it matters. All of it is yours. All of it adds up to one.
The question isn't how to balance work against life.
The question is, are you actually living?
Written my first day back from Hawaii. Still feeling the sun.
June 26, 2023