This is the question. We hope to achieve a work/life balance but this can be difficult at times, or even impossible.
A particular project or a family situation, for example, can take a colossal investment of time.
An intense focus impacts on our life’s balance. All dimensions of our well-being suffer. At other times, more can be devoted to the dimensions of wellness.
It really is a matter of discovering life’s rhythms so that each dimension can be looked after.
So, from time to time, refocus and rebalance.
Work/Life Balance is Worse
Linda Duxbury has researched work/life balance for many years. She is working on a third major survey soon to be released. Studies in the field suggest that despite everything with respect to balance the situation is worse. Results show that men are more messed up and that family issues, elder care and technology that allows us to work 24/7 are having an impact. Are employers looking at the data? Or are they writing it off as a way of doing business?
There is an inordinate amount of long-term disability relating to depression. We have been doing more with less for so long. We can no longer do it. Work/life is not balanced. It depends on what puts it out of balance – can’t find support in the organization, child-care challenges? What about the attitude that people chose to work so why should they be supported? Yet Scandinavians believe that it takes a community to raise a child. There is a different sense of community, not a them versus us attitude.
Achieving a balance will take 5 – 10 years of dramatic change. Change will happen because it has to. There is an aging population, an under-supply of youth and lower fertility levels in many cultures. It is time to take the situation seriously according to Dr. Duxbury.