Don't Slip Away

I glanced at some of the stats for this blog, and I realized that people have been reading it. I don't know why they are or who they are, but I guess there is an audience.

Some of you may be friends, but I thought most of them stopped reading a while ago.

In starting my professional career, I find my life being as expected. I pour myself into my work.

This really expands into a concept of work-life balance that I've always had trouble understanding. Somehow, people divide who they are and their work. I don't get this mostly because I view what I do as a large portion of who I am as a person. I don't let my work define me, but my passions are expressed through my work. My work is part of me.

Where does the life part come into play? I think what most people mean by work-life balance is setting hours between their 9-5 (or whatever set of hours) job and their non-work activities. However, if my work is an expression of myself, how can I separate my job from non-work activities. I don't stop being myself when I leave work or stop working.

Instead of compartmentalization, there is integration of everything. My friends are those who are around me. It makes little difference if I work with them or if they sleep in the room next to me. There is no separation between work and what is outside of work because they are all part of me.

To most people, I think I appear to simply work a lot without any life to balance the work. Yet, I'm forced to ask what life exists at this stage of my life outside of work. To have the appearance of balance, there must be something to balance. This isn't even an issue under my integrated view, as everything is one.

To indulge the alternative thought, my hours of work dominate my existence partially because I indulge in the addiction of my work. The other part is that most people I know keep very different hours and few of my friends are left in the city.

Part of growing up means that we come into our own and we balance our work with who we are as people. School is no longer there to define us. For people who have defined themselves externally for so many years as students, there is a struggle between deciding what they define themselves as with their chosen profession.

With an integrated view, I think that we make the effort to do as much as we can. That means I make the effort to make friends a part of my life, along with work. I don't believe there is a sacrifice of either.

I think many of my friends have failed to understand this. There is a struggle to define who they are, and the natural inclination is to define that beyond their work because their work isn't an expression of themselves, but rather what they do during a set of hours.

The result is that my friends and I don't see each other that often. I regularly make the effort outside of my work schedule (or within it) to see my friends. However, most don't reciprocate. Instead, it's viewed in a schema of what works rather than making it work. That is a path towards disaster, as life never gets easier. There is always a new challenge.

What does this all mean? I means that I'm starting to discover which friends want to make the effort and which friends aren't willing to make the effort.

I know my view is radically different than that of most people, but I also think that being able to follow your passions is radically different than what most people do with their lives. I also realize that my priorities may shift in the future to provide for a differing view.

The problem I currently see is with those people in my life who can't understand that this is who I am. If they can't accept who I am and make the effort to be a part of my life, should I keep making an effort?

I'll keep trying for now because that is what I've always done. Life is too short to do something you aren't proud of making part of your life.