The life-changing magic of work-life balance

How does one know if they have work-life balance? Is there a formula, an ideal? Has anyone calculated the optimal percent of time and energy that should be spent and focused outside of one’s career? My first thoughts are that approaching work-life balance that way defeats the point, and in all honesty, aren’t the activities we do to make ourselves satisfied with our lives unique to each one of us?

The conversation about work-life balance always seems, to me, to focus on life activities that are more work – exercise, hobbies, social outings… albeit activities I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy, but activities I have to schedule and plan and mull over before, during, and afterwards. I won’t extoll the many virtues of exercise, the creative and energetic outlets hobbies are often billed as, or the benefit friendships have on a person, as many other resources on the web do a significantly better job than I can. I find immense joy in photographing wildlife on a hike or witnessing myself improve at a sport or in general fitness. I like letting my mind wander (into the territory of ‘how did my experiment go wrong’) while I create an abstract drawing or card for a loved one. Social outings… that one is a bit complicated for me, but I treasure the memories made with my family and friends. However each one of these things can add pressure to my workload, and while I’m trying to experience a full and diverse life I often find myself worrying over my experimental plans for the next week, my next program deadline, and/or whether I am properly positioning myself for the career I want. It’s not exactly the work-life balance I’ve dreamed about.

On the positive side, it helps a lot that I am in love with my work in an embarrassing way. I will be mid-protocol and be struck by the fact that not only am I living my childhood dream, but I am even more fascinated by my field than I was one, five, or ten years ago. I know what hating your job is like, to the point of being physically sick over it. A day in lab that lasts ten or twelve hours is more often invigorating than demoralizing, motivating me to come in even earlier the next day; whereas in some previous jobs I felt trapped by every new responsibility. I feel like I might have mentioned this all before, but I can’t help but tell people I made the right decision about what I want to do with my life (so far).

One of the leftover mugs from a recent crafting adventure.

Loving my job or not, I still need to find time to explicitly exist in the given moment. To those who have known me throughout my life, maybe it’s hard to imagine that I am not laidback, ready to go whichever way life takes me. Then again, maybe it’s not – I grew up in a family of Type A personalities. My spouse is constantly… lovingly?… reminding to me “relax,” and in doing so, only making me more stressed that I am not relaxed and reminding me that I am somehow so bad at doing something that is supposed to be natural instinct. A valuable lesson my PhD is teaching me, however, is to make space for that time to “relax.” Granted, I will probably fill it with chores or a run or dithering about all the things I’m not doing. If I’m lucky, however, my step-daughter will ask to do a craft and I will pull out multiple mugs so she has a good model. Maybe my spouse will suggest we watch a movie I’ve been wanting to see in the middle of the afternoon. If my cat is lucky, it will catch me at the right time with a forlorn look and adamant “meow” for attention, pets, and scratching. For twenty minutes or an hour or two, my life will only exist as the moment I am in.

Upon a little reflection, I have work-life balance. It takes a bit of work to make it that way, and sometimes in the middle of all the work that is life, I wonder if there is a returns department for this whole existence thing. But the tiny, serendipitous, spontaneous moments of joy I find in all the things I do, brings me all the balance I need.

Lauren Bonefont (@LBMicro) is a second year PhD student at an institution in Florida. This story was published on January 14, 2019, on Lauren’s blog, Two Women Scientists (available here) and has been republished here with her permission.