Creating the lives we want can feel like a giant slog and struggle. Our goals, tasks, obligations, and aspirations all compete for our attention. Then add the goals and needs of others, and it is a miracle our brains can organize our lives into any workable plan from day to day. The idea that we are supposed to be able to work and live in some sort of ideal balance implies stasis and perfection, not the constant, creative motion of life.
Many of us add a level of complexity by doing work in organizations that try to promote sustainable business practices by focusing simultaneously on people, profit and the planet. Sustainability is the focus. If a company known for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) does something that is fails to uphold that position – it treats employees in an unjust way, misleads the public about its products, sources an ingredient from an negligent vendor – its stakeholders point out this discrepancy and call for immediate change. Jeopardizing the system is not an option.
These organizations require attention and care and creativity – as do our experiences outside of our paid work: our family, friends, communities, homes, and our personal health. So questions emerge: while we work to create and maintain the health of our organizations and workplaces, is this behavior sustainable outside of work as well? Does it support the health of our personal equivalent triple bottom line?
“Balance” can look like this…
Our culture attempts to dodge these questions by pointing to the concept of “work/life balance.” Work and life – “life” being family, fun and the things that we’d supposedly rather be doing other than working – there are only two parts. But the balance is like a teeter-totter, and one side can suddenly plummet if an unexpected imbalance occurs, jettisoning the other up into the wind while waiting for a convenient time to be recovered.
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This is why the work/life balance concept is an illusion. It implies that a) balance is possible and desirable, and b) work is not part of life. It does not look at individuals or all of the things each of us do in context of our larger experiences. What we seek when we long for work/life “balance” is not balance, but health. Systems needn’t be magically balanced but they do need to be healthy. The health of a system is the foundation for its success.
So, what if we start thinking about our lives like we think about the companies we are working so hard to support: dynamic systems that must be tended to in many ways in order to be healthy and highly functioning? What if we considered ourselves as dynamic, working-health systems?
Like CSR companies and their knowledge that sustainable business practices are the keys to the success of their triple bottom lines, the work we do as humans is dependent upon our overall health. Health – physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, interpersonal, professional etc. – is what every person needs to be sustainable over time. It allows us to thrive.
If we can start applying the ideas that we promote about creating positive organizations to the full breadth of our lives – the dynamic systems that require deliberate attention to work well – we can practice what we preach and live and work sustainably. Choosing to think of our lives as multifaceted, dynamic systems rather than to two basic parts that just need to be balanced can be a lot to consider. Seeing ourselves as the beautiful complexities we are rather than simplistic teeter-totters is worth it.
… but work and life is more like this.
