By Rhonda Campbell
Work life balance, like the term “looking out for number one,” gained popularity in the 1980s. Companies started building daycare centers on-site at their facilities, so working mothers they employed could shorten the time it took to drop their children off and pick them up at daycare. Some employers also started verbally encouraging their employees to take two weeks of vacation a year.
Anyone who heard that she would lose her vacation days if she didn’t use them before the close of the year, got a taste of the push for work life balance. But, if work life balance possible?
Americans spend huge chunks of time at work
At time when the majority of working Americans log more than 40 hours a week, are people really enjoying a truly balanced experience? One in three employed Americans works more than 50 hours a week. The drive to work takes 25 minutes one-way, on average. For some professionals, that means easily spending 60 hours a week focused on a work-related action.
Where’s the work life balance in that? Factor in company downsizings, and the situation could get worse, especially if a company ask its remaining workers to do twice the amount of work they did before the layoffs.
Perhaps, instead of going after work life balance, American adults should strive for a life that feels fulfilling, peaceful and happy. That would require speaking up at work in respectful ways, using dialogue that helps them to be heard. They might have to stop trying to be “everything” to supervisors and management, striving to impress these people by wearing three or more hats simultaneously.
It also requires personal awareness, including awareness of one’s true passions, talents and gifts. After all, if a person doesn’t know what makes them happy, what they love to do, it may be hard finding the “right” job. What’s the sense of trying to wear even one hat if the hat doesn’t fit? To discover their passions, gifts and talents, people can create a list of things they’ve loved doing as a kid. They can also write down what they’d do if they could do two to three things for the rest of their life without having to ever give money a second thought.
Doing meaningful work is another option. People who educate, inspire, coach and minister to others do this type of work. By working with innovative, adventurous and fun people who look for solutions rather than new ways to complain, Americans can gain immeasurable rewards from their employment. When they walk out the door at the end of the day, they should also leave work behind and avoid plugging into laptops, mobile devices and computers until the wee hours of the morning.
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