jen briggs

Work-life balance has been the en vogue, pop-culture-of-business, word of the decade. And, it is a concept that I continually struggle to agree with or even comprehend. My scarcity brain restricts me from it and arguably protects me from it.

My life story is longer and more complicated than I care to get in to for the purposes of this article, but let’s suffice it to say that I am a true Gen X’er and most of the clichés that come along with that. But, rather than low parental oversight as a latchkey kid, I had no parental oversight. Poverty was a reality and my kind sister would help me get to and from the free food pantry because there was no public transport in my rural area and I had no car; no drivers license. This is where grit grows in the soul. This is where the scarcity brain drives action because scarcity is real. Fortunately for me, I did not grow hard-hearted and have been able to attach an abundance oriented mindset to the ready-to-defy orientation of my youth.

But this lingering work-life balance attitude that permeates our work-cultures continues to frustrate me. It’s a new year beginning and people will set their resolutions and work-life balance, themes of me-time, and self-care will bombard us. It feels classist and arrogant. There is no work-life balance when you work just to get by or have multiple jobs. It’s ridiculous. There’s no self-care when you take a full school schedule, care for your family, and head out to your night job. Yes, I think if I had learned how to meditate when I was younger, I would have been a better parent and student. But, this is not seeking balance – it’s repairing damage to the brain from the emotional struggle.

As a leader, I would often hear our people earnestly and frustratingly seek their work-life balance. It’s almost become more of a dictate vs. a  self-help headline. But, the reality is, balance is an illusion and depending on how you seek it an unhealthy aspiration. Some have come to feel like something is being held back from them if there are too many hours working in a day. Perhaps. But, it’s about what your able to do with your hours. I no longer believe in meritocracy as dogma, but I still believe that even when we don’t have the springboard of privilege at our whim, we can work to create as many opportunities and open doors as we can. It all depends on the individual, so we have to throw out these generic concepts like work-life balance that tempt us to feel like we should be getting something we aren’t.

I’ve heard it and have said it too – the business jargon of time management. I love working in sprints, but having the discipline to create a recovery period was rare. I was a single mom of three young children, so any recovery time was just makeup time for my absences. There’s the classic phrase … it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. The trouble with this one is that marathons end and work rarely does. It’s hard to find an end when you live in scarcity. Even if you exist in prosperity, if you’ve had a scarcity mentality, it’s always there and always seeking if you don’t learn how to dim the force. There’s always more education to receive, articles to read, work to be done, and families to be cared for. I look back now and try to figure out how I managed between fulltime school, fulltime work, and fulltime parenting. There was no balance and especially not within a day or week. Something or someone always lost.

But, the thing is – I did find happiness and joy.

I used my time for a purpose. I used my time bartending and waitressing to learn from the customers. I used every drop of my education time. Every work experience has had value. I used my family time to foster relationships and embrace the struggle. I used it for the very basic utilitarian purposes of making dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning the house. I hate that idiom pressure makes a diamond. Yes, extreme adversity can create something precious. Yet, extreme adversity can be crushing. The real key is not balance or self-care or me-time. The real key is the love and the support of the people around you.

If we have three zones to our life – personal, professional, and family – this concept holds true in each. While we cannot always choose our work (don’t forget choice is a luxury), but we can foster the positive relationships at work. In all companies and communities, there will be negative circles and positive circles. Starve negative, feed positive. Family too – not all family will be supportive. While we may have the certain nearly-required standard family engagements, be polite, but one doesn’t need to stay attached all year if the relationship doesn’t work. In personal – find good love, feed your brain and your body as well as you can. Don’t think of exercise and meditation as self-care, but your duty to yourself and others to operate at your best level. Minimize to bring the things that add value to your life closer to you – yes, both people and things.

Balance will bring frustration because it is nearly impossible. Besides, who wants to be comfortable? Rather, find the value of the things around you and nourish those. Being uncomfortable is where we are able to dig up the new and light our souls.