I am pretty sure you have heard of advise like this “you need to balance your life”, “you have to balance between job and family”. I personally find it hard to appreciate it because life it’s often about prioritising importance, letting go of certain things, and making sacrifices rather than making the balance of activities in amount. For instance, for myself, I have a family and two kids but I also have full-time job. I spent 80% of my time on my work and the rest of my time goes to my family. I never see myself as being able to balance my career and family. It is obvious enough from the amount of time I commit in each aspect that there is no balance there. Juggling the two is a constant challenge. But the decision on how little time I would spend on my family was upfront a very conscious one – if I work full time, I would have only little time left for my children who would then be left to other care-givers. I see it as something that I would have to give up if I work, and that I need to feel good about the arrangement and decision, otherwise I would not have done it the way. After all, my family could have also lived simply on just my husband’s one income if I choose not to work and stay at home to take care of the kids.
I guess ultimately, when we are being pulled in different directions and have to manage a tension caused by the demands and obligations in life, it’s about striking a point where we could make a conscious choice on how what the most feasible arrangement would be and be happy with whatever decision that is made.
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