OPERATOR’S MANUAL
Why Work-Life Balance Is Bullshit
There is only one way out of the conundrum of it
I spat out the words with anger that surprised me: “Work-life balance is bullshit.”
I was on a call with a reporter looking into doing a piece about the workshop I was delivering in a few weeks. I was at LaGuardia Airport waiting to board a flight to Denver for a board meeting in Boulder. The morning had been rushed. Lately, it feels like everything is rushed.
“I’m scared,” I’d told my Buddhist teacher on Monday. “I find myself doing more and more… the calls and inquiries for coaching are so much more than I can handle.” He smiled in a way that says, “I’m not going to say anything. You have to keep going.”
“I’m afraid I’ll lose myself… again. I’ll find myself overweight, sickly, disconnected from my body, my family, and back at the point where the subway tracks seem like the right answer,” I continued.
“It is different now,” he said. I waited for more, and then realized I wasn’t getting it.
It’s different now, said my teacher, because I have the right livelihood. What I’m working toward now is less about my own ego aggrandizement (although that temptation is always there) and more about helping.
