Along the same lines of yesterday’s post, I do enjoy quite a bit of balance in my life. Yes, in our society we are constantly talking about the “work-life balance”, with some saying that it’s a myth and some saying that it is achievable.
As you may have read in yesterday’s post, I burnt myself out on too many social events several years ago; that aspect of my life has not been the only part that I have burnt myself out on. When I first started working in San Francisco, I found that I needed to make more money in order to be able to afford my first apartment there. So I took up a second job to complement my first job: both were part-time, so I figured I could fill out my 40 hours a week through those two jobs.
I quickly learned after a month of working both jobs that I could not keep both of them: I found myself lacking much free time for myself, which I value a lot for my sanity. So I left the second job to focus my efforts on the first one. Soon after, I changed jobs again and, try as I may, I was unable to do two jobs at the same time.
It’s not a matter of entitlement to say I didn’t need to work more than one job: it’s more a matter of being in tune with what would keep my happiness intact. Slogging away all my waking hours at different jobs stressed me out to the point where my free time was whittled away and I felt like I was becoming a machine with nothing else to live for except work.
So I learned my lesson: keep the balance of work and life to keep myself happy and healthy. I still did a bit of juggling jobs after San Francisco and up until early last year; these days, I am focusing my efforts on just my own business and giving myself the designated work hours in order to also allow myself daily downtime.
Even though some industries would encourage working all hours of the day, we must remember to take time every day to relax and have fun. Success isn’t really success if you end up burning yourself out.