Over the years, I've spoken about the futile pursuit of work-life “balance.”
The crux being: life is not about work, and work isn't about life. Life, in itself, is something each being moves through, ebbing and flowing to one’s own nature.
Work-life balance doesn't exist
A balanced teeter-totter is boring.
Pursuing balance is a futile effort, constantly working towards something that's unachievable. One event can throw everything out of whack and the stress of being imbalance can make things even worse.
It creates a false separation of living one's life and doing your life's work. Most of us humans can't switch into "work mode," disregarding all those other layers that influence who & what we bring to our work.
We are dynamic, complex beings filled with emotion, thought, and flow.
Boundaries are better than Balance
We have a finite amount of time and energy. To continue doing—day to day, month to month, year to year—we have to be purposeful of how we use that energy.
If we use all our spoons at work, we lose the spoons for others. We can't grow in capacity, doing more, if we don't have the energy needed to keep it up.
Listening to yourself, understanding one's bounds & needs, then setting those boundaries is extremely difficult. When we have none, everything becomes unsustainable and overwhelming. We quickly progress towards burnout, overwork, and misunderstood expectations.
Lessons from moss
I'm a big fan of the Ologies podcast by Alie Ward. Every podcast is filled with cool science, where Alie interviews interesting people studying interesting things.
One impactful episode was with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer on Bryology, "a world-renowned author, botanist, Indigenous ecology professor and byrologist." I can't recommend this podcast enough, but this episode: give it a good listen.
Once; twice; thrice.
Moss is an extraordinary plant. They can grow on anything because of how they attach themselves to things. They grow everywhere because they take advantage of physics, using extremely thin boundary layers, operating in the stillness of air, capturing moisture to germinate, spread, and grow.
Dr. Kimmerer describes mosses as:
A little green house that occurs naturally over every surface, a place which is warmer, moister, and as it happens, richer in carbon dioxide than any place else, and that's where the mosses live. They’re exploiting these little microhabitats, rather than trying to dominate and control the habitat, they're taking advantage of the laws of physics and exploiting these naturally occurring little greenhouses.
They're using these boundary layers to thrive in extreme hostile environments, the first to "colonize land 350 million years ago."
Sophisticated simplicity.
Boundaries are powerful.
Only the individual has the power to create, define, and communicate their own bounds of what they need in life & work.
- They require reflection to create, especially for one's self.
- They're the limits, the lines we say can or cannot be crossed.
- They manage personal expectations and expectations others put onto us.
- Defining them fosters respect for self and others.
- With them, we operate towards equilibrium—not constant pursuit of unattainable balance.
- When set, we create personal micro-habitats to thrive.