Why Finding Work-Life Balance and Happiness is a Personal Problem
Balance and Happiness have intriguingly become the two most sought-after but the hardest to find things for our generation.
Let me clarify at the outset, that I have not cracked this balance at my end and it remains as elusive as for anyone who is reading this article with the intent to find it. I am one of you. This post is just a humane attempt to share my personal experiences gained through a lot of sleepless nights and reading a lot of stuff on the internet and in books on happiness, mindfulness and leading a balanced, purposeful life.
Before you begin this journey of finding balance, it is essential to reflect on the 3 questions below and understand your perspective. Without a knowledge of these, the journey would only have a half-hearted start.
One, What does balance mean for you? Is it just about having enough time to balance personal priorities post work? Or is it about integrating what you love with what you do thereby eliminating the whole work-life balance debate? Is balance about a combination of some long and some light days giving a rhythmic balance to your life? Is it about doing something in a manner that doesn’t leave you drained and guilty of spending too much time on it? These are some answers you have to find for yourself. And all of us will arrive at different answers. That is perfectly okay — balance has no universal definition.
Second, What makes you happy? Happiness is an entirely independent pursuit in itself. The growing unhappiness levels of our generation that has doggedly committed itself to a life of uninspiring work (read: Corporate life!), whose waking hours are more about work than life, really needs to answer this question for itself without deferring the confrontation or living in denial. The incessant pressure that our social media lives put us through — of pushing us to our limits of jealousy, unhappiness and even depression, will never lead us to answers that are authentic to ourselves. At least those of us born in the 1980s have experienced a world that functioned without social media and can try not to be sucked by it.
What maybe success for others may not bring happiness to you. It may be ambition for some to move jobs and countries every few years. It maybe wanderlust/soul-searching for another. And for a person who cannot think of being away from family and friends, it may not matter all. Once again, there is no one definition that fits all.
What we see in the digital lives of our peers is a lie many of us are now beginning to accept. The whole idea of finding your passion or purpose in life before it is too late is a fabricated pressure arising out of the make-believe world of social media. Life is not a time-based mission to find your purpose. Life is about creating that purpose one day at a time and discovering happiness en-route.
Lastly, is life really a rat race? Do you really want to live life with the fear of missing out everything or miss out the most important events in the lives of the very few people who genuinely matter? Growing in life can come at its own pace. Why be in a rush if it constantly makes you unhappy?
Ever wondered, how did our housewife mums in India manage their soul searching in the confine of those 4 walls and still remain happy? A very beautiful article by a batch mate drives this point beautifully of how our parents’ generation had balanced, purpose-driven and content lives. They had a higher-order purpose, a purpose above their own needs and desires, of keeping the family fabric stable. They were never in a rush to get ahead because they valued life is long and things unfold at the pace they have to and we cannot change that. This made work-life balance a nearly non-existent dilemma for them. There was time for everything they wanted to do. Cut short to all of us, who have single-handedly devoted our energies into one large pursuit — a career to boast about OR an entrepreneurial venture or our wanderlust — we just missed the point that it is a little bit of everything that makes for a happy life. There is and can never be just a single source of happiness. We cannot have all our eggs in one basket!
Work on the above three takes time and will not come by easy. It takes a lot of introspection and determination to not be affected by the manicured and happy lives we see around us. However, one thing that has helped me reach at least this stage in this pursuit of finding my balance and happiness is the acceptance that life is all about priorities. If you have your priorities clear — you will find the time to take care of them. Yes, it will mean choosing to cook something you love over an extra hour of sleep. It would mean giving up on that impulse Amazon purchase and saving for a future exigency, it could mean skipping a random social-do for writing that one article you have been procrastinating about. This journey will not come without choices, you will have to let go of a lot of things but what waits at the end of this should definitely get us what we have been seeking all this while!
Let’s log out of social media and log into the real world to discover where we need to start.
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I am leaving you with some readings that helped me de-clutter my mind –
1. A beautiful book called Ikigai — The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life
2. Article: David Whyte on How to Break the Tyranny of Work/Life Balance
3. My college friend’s on Find Your Purpose because Passion is Over-rated
4. Leisure — Reclaiming Our Human Dignity in a Culture of Workaholism
