This article reminds me of some sayings that “There is no such things as no time, but it depends on whether the thing is mattered to you”.
My sensei sometimes asked in the class how we see “working from home”. I said it’s great since we have flexibility to do some work at home, and some of my classmates agree with this too. But she said, she doesn’t like it. It means there is no separation between work and non-work life. Some of my classmates agree too.
Another colleague joked that there is no work life balance, but work life integration. In which these days, we seems to be wired with our work life, or expected to be always-on or almost-always-on when someone is trying to reach out to us. As in compared to back then we just need to ping our colleagues during office hour and/or email them if the timezone is beyond ours.
People also are getting impatient and want instant answer, didn’t really like to read the details in emails. There is a unspoken golden rule (told my previous team lead) that write no more than 3 bullets of single sentence, otherwise your email will be chucked aside and you’ll wait forever for the response.
I’m guilty of often saying no time too because of work. Or meetings which late in my evening. I have been trying to minimize it, but I think being minority (in terms of location) doesn’t give me good advantage since (almost) everyone else is located in the same office. My ex flatmate often said, being in Asia sometimes we are at the end of the stick and need to accommodate other countries like in Europe or US, by taking it on our evening. And she has toddler.
*everything includes damage of binge online shopping and binge eating or drinking bubble tea >_<!
Some say work is just work until they have no more feels about it. I find this hard for me, as I’m the type of person who is passionate what I do, especially if there is a good cause around it. It makes it worthed to put your effort and time to it.
What’s the answer for this situation? I don’t know. As currently I’m still looking for what works for me. But the longer I’m in this situation, the more I realise what are the things matters for me. Just that, am I really able to accept it if I’m doing something else. As you know that the grass is always greener on the other side.
Lastly, I miss my training days and races, miss to go out with friends and miss doing my hobbies (although I have tons of hobbies too). And importantly, I miss my 2 (fur) sons.
As another food for thought, check out this comic by The Woke Salaryman.
