The common way we think about work-life or life-career balance is that there is a time for “life” and a time for your career. And like that odd mixture of cranberry sauce and gravy at an (American) Thanksgiving plate, the two really shouldn’t meet. The problem is that “life” is pretty much a 24/7 proposition. If you’re not living, then you’re dead, and while work may make many of us feel dead inside, we’re still alive while we’re doing it.
That reminds me of the mind-body divide too. That some guy who said “I think therefore I am”, then saw fit to separate the mind from the body, as if your brain doesn’t have to be in YOUR body for YOU to think. If my brain were lying on the ground somewhere separated from my body and not in a jar as in Futurama, well, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be thinking at all because none of the supporting systems (circulatory, respiratory, etc.) would be attached to my brain to keep it working. It’d be a blob of gray matter that some creature would probably come along and find it a tasty meal, but it wouldn’t be thinking even before that happened.
If we think if our life and career in the same way we think about our mind and body, then we’re going to make the same mistakes.
Yoga philosophy doesn’t separate the mind and body the way we do in the west. And in fact, there’s a book I’ve been wanting to read (Descartes Error) that proposes that “I think therefore I am” should be “I feel therefore I am”. Which falls more in line with yoga philosophy and my own as well. I mean I love thinking, love learning new things, but it’s the undefinable spark of inspiration that drives me, and that’s often driven by feelings, whether it’s passion for a project or for helping people, or just a simple desire to put some good comfort cozy into the world.
Hindu philosophy, which made its way into yoga philosophy’s beginnings, speak of Prakriti (nature, matter, the formed Universe) and Purusha (pure consciousness that animates matter). To put it into simpler terms, there is the body, and your mind, being formed of matter (it’s in the name–gray matter) is a part of your body, and then there is that spark, that pure consciousness which would be your spirit, your inspiration, your muse. It’s the driving force. And while we’re still talking about them as separate things, without matter, without prakriti, the purusha (consciousness) would be very limited in what it can do, and without that consciousness, we would be like the living dead.
Just as the separation between mind and body is false, the separation between life (everything you do outside of work) and career (your job) is false.
We all know our work affects everything outside of it. Burnout, depression, anxiety, and bosses without boundaries are real. Trying to find that balance, especially as an entrepreneur or author, is difficult. And while I am not telling you to forget that balance entirely that it’s our jobs to work all the time because that’s what capitalism wants us to do and is (an extraction process), I’m also not telling you NOT to work because let’s be honest, we all like to have food in our stomachs and our bills paid.
I’m inviting you to think about these differently.
Is your work as an author or as a “day job” actually feeding your spirit? It is supporting the other areas of your life? We know that you cannot wall off your author time and your family time. If you’re like me then watching television or eating dinner with your partner might mean that you’re thinking of story ideas or a random idea or thing to do to help promote your writing might pop into your mind.
Is all the other time in the day supporting your work as an author? Do the people around you take your writing seriously? If not, how are you addressing that? Do they give you time to work when you need it? Do they believe their job is more important than yours?
I think if we start abolishing the idea of dualities or hierarchies in this way, we can find more flow, find more balance in what we’re doing, without trying to put very immeasurable things into very finite boxes.