Having navigated the tech world for more than 30 years, I have always wrestled with the meme “work-life balance.” How can one be MVP in the workplace, the paragon of a spouse and friend, and still regenerate one’s soul with personally fulfilling and fun experiences?  

Consider the definition of the word “balance”: to be equal or correct in proportions which allows someone or something to remain upright and steady. Is it realistic to think a person can apply equal proportions of work, relationships, and self? 

Author and poet David Whyte helps us understand the illusion of work-life balance in his book The Three Marriages. Whyte writes about three distinct but interwoven “marriages” of life we must maintain. They are:

• Marriage of relationships: the relationships you have with your partner, family, and friends.  

• Marriage with your vocation: your job, your calling in life. 

• Marriage with your Self: the Self that calls you to surf, to religion, to community, to whatever passion, or hobby that recharges your batteries. 

Whyte believes we need to commit to all three of these spheres. But it gets tricky, because sometimes work has to take precedent, other times family is our number-one focus (and if you live in Santa Cruz, often times surf takes over). Committing to one’s Self gets even trickier, because the Self is always changing what it wants or needs from life, as our interests, values, and life circumstances shift. What the Teen Self needs is different from the Twenties Self, the Thirties Self, and so on as we evolve. Vocation is also in flux: the average person changes careers five to seven times, and the primacy of work varies by financial needs. Sometimes we feel trapped in a job. Financial commitments may force us to hunker down, stressed and feeling helpless. 

Divining these varying rhythms of life can be both enlightening and maddening. It’s like trying to understand the tides without a tide chart, without an app, without knowledge of the gravitational forces that cause the ocean’s waters to ebb and flow. So how do we find peace in the waves? How do we find self-efficacy and fulfillment through the ups-and-downs of life and work?

Whyte believes we must simultaneously invest in our goals while seeking out and experiencing delight.  He describes goals as the “horizon to which we have dedicated ourselves.” He defines delight as the “eros,” the passion sparked within us when we do something  fulfilling. We need both purpose and eros to keep all three of our marriages energized and burning bright.   

Simplicity

Toby Corey with Zentreprenuer.life believes in vocation that fuels creativity, social and environmental responsibility. “Simplicity,” states Toby.  “I like to keep this principle top-of-mind when I think about my life, direction and purpose. The challenge is that we are living in a very distracting, hurried, unfocused and materialistic time in history. As a result, we are all challenged by the work life balance. I’m constantly asking myself how do I simplify this problem? The answer I consistently come up with is subtraction. What can I subtract from my life to give me more room to excel in the really important aspects of my life and career. By reducing distractions — the things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of life — I’m able to focus and excel in the important aspects of my life. Confucius says; ‘Life is really simple, but we like to make it complicated.’” 

Work Life Thrive

Arianna Huffington’s unique perspective vehemently shuns the term work-life balance. She prefers the term: Work Life Thrive. In episode 8 of Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast, Huffington points out that balance in equal proportions is not a realistic goal. Instead, we should seek to thrive in all of our endeavors. We thrive when we have a goal, a guiding star, a purpose—whether it relates to our vocation, relationships, or Self. We thrive by doing something we love. 

When you combine purpose and passion in any of those three marriages, you thrive. There is no need to balance all of them in equal proportions. We can appreciate how each of them compliments the others, and how we may naturally need to shift focus from time to time. From this perspective, we can see how one marriage may fuel us for a period of time while the others take the back-burner...but remain sparked. 

Thank you to my muses Julia Sinn and Neil Erickson