Creating work/life balance when you don't have any time
I had a fantasy of writing on this blog every day. I might get there, in time. But for now, I need to remember that there are limitations on my time and capabilities.
I'm in the final stretch of the final semester to get my B.S. in Accounting. I went back to school three years ago to get what can more readily be described as a "professional degree". I have a B.A. in Journalism.
Being an almost-but-not-quite full time student, and a full-time employee really is no joke. Everyone says to me "I don't know how you do it!" and I just shrug in response and make vague noises in their direction. The truth is, I don't know how I do it either. I'm not entirely sure I am "doing it" in the sense that I'm pretty sure my work/life/school balance is completely hosed. I usually feel like I'm hanging on by the skin of my teeth. I'm tired and frustrated. I work all the time.
But it has also forced me to learn a lot of important lessons about balance and emotional time management.
I hate my job kind of a lot, and everyone says I should quit. But also, everyone in my personal life has made it abundantly clear that they don't want to hear about the stupid things that happen at my job. The annoyances I have to deal with, etc. Since I can't quit the job right this second, I decided I didn't actually want to torture the people I love with the details. The only advice they can give me is to leave, and I just turn around and tell them that I can't do that right now. No one enjoys that interaction.
So I've stopped talking about work outside of work. If a particularly amusing interpersonal interaction takes place, I can tell that story. On very rare occasions, I'll complain very briefly about something that's irritating me, but I try to keep it to as a few sentences as possible and light on the details.
This has made a HUGE DIFFERENCE, actually.
First, it means that outside of work, I'm really not allowed to think about work. Maybe I can let some background processing on a work problem happen while I shower, but if I'm not in the office, I'm just not focusing on office or work-related thoughts.
Second, it means I can't wallow in the things that annoy me about my job. Not being allowed to complain about all the little things (or even the big things) that happen in the office that drive me up the wall; poor management, insufficient support, annoying vendor/customer relations, etc. has meant that I can't tend to my frustration and resentment in the hours where I'm away from their primary causes. I don't suffer less at work as a result of not complaining about them, and their deleterious effects are not especially diminished, but I'm not letting the poison of my anger drip-drip-drip into my soul during the time that they're not actively affecting me.
Third, I have to think about other things! I have to make an effort to read more, to watch more TV, to go places, eat foods, talk to people, listen to music, and make art. I get to really put all my focus into school while I'm there. I don't magically "have more time" for hobbies or recreation. But in addition to what free time I have being actually "my own" now, I'm motivated and encouraged to fill it with stuff I enjoy or, at least, find interesting.
Wanting to be able to share "what's new with me" means that, if work is off the table, I have to make sure that I find "something new" for myself.
I think I've spent a lot of the last few years in a cycle of overwork and escapism. My parents definitely modeled a type of work/life imbalance that I think is most common among academics and maybe entrepreneurs. They are people who enjoy the work they do, they think it's interesting. My dad is a developer, and he enjoys working with computers; he has a PhD in computer science and reads about math and computing in his spare time. My mom has worked in digital humanities my entire life; so conversations about databases and scripting were a common dinnertime occurrence.
My full-time job is actually working in an accounting department. I sought it out (and was very pleased to land it!) pretty much simultaneously with my decision to go back to school. I wanted to make sure that the actual work of an accountant was something I wouldn't mind doing, long term. School is one thing, but real life is something else. Thankfully, I genuinely enjoy the types of problems that one solves when one is an accountant. One of the most important things, I think, when seeking employment, is making sure that whatever the most "boring" part of the job you get is something that you don't hate doing. Working in retail was difficult for me, because the "time filling" activities in retail include things like "dusting" and "restocking" and more than finding the tasks unpleasant (they're too banal to be considered "unpleasant" really), I just won't remember to perform them without some kind of outside reminder.
As an accountant, however, the most "boring" tasks I get assigned are things like data entry or various types of reconciliations. Are these the things that bring me the greatest joy in life? No, of course not. But I can get into the rhythm of them when I have to, and they make me feel accomplished when I've finished.
So, it's not about "finding something you love, and you'll never work a day in your life," —— work is work, and the reason they pay you to do it, is because you probably wouldn't do it for free (at least not for the person paying you). But I'm starting to think that work/life balance is an internal practice, not solely an external state of being.
Thanks for reading!