No. 31. The secret to work life balance
Hint: it's not what you think!
One of my younger sisters has always been the Martha sister (from the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42). Her work ethic is exemplary, but sometimes, she misses out on the moments happening at the dining room table because she is always in the kitchen or cleaning something, even while we have guests on the other side of the wall from the kitchen. And I didn’t want that for her once she got married. So we talked about learning to choose the better thing, even if it meant leaving some cleaning or cooking undone.
Work/life balance is an elusive unicorn for most women, especially those who work for pay. I didn’t fully experience that tension until I got married this year. About four months into our marriage, I decided to tag along with my husband on one of his business trips. He was attending a farm show in Ohio and one of my closest friends lived there. Since I was attending a virtual conference that week, I could watch the conference from the hotel room while my husband went to work, and then we’d spend the evenings with friends.
The third day of the farm show got rained out, so my husband came back early and wanted to go get breakfast. I was going to be in the conference from 10 am to 5 pm all week, and so I had been planning to spend the morning trying to get ahead of a big work project that I couldn't get to because of the conference. So, I suggested just grabbing a hotel breakfast instead, so that I could have that hour and a half to work before my first session.
I could see my husband was disappointed, but being the kind man he is, he agreed. And as we stood there trying to choose between the packaged breakfast options at the hotel, I had to remind myself to choose the better thing. So, I asked him if he wanted to go somewhere else. After a few minutes, he said he’d been hoping to go to Cracker Barrel.
When we got to the restaurant, I noticed a lot of men with lanyards from the farm show, so I asked my husband about it. He said that his co-workers had broken up into groups to go get breakfast but he declined so he could come back to take me to breakfast (perks of bringing your wife on a business trip!).
At that moment, I was glad I chose to take an hour to get breakfast with my husband instead of trying to get ahead at work. Because I could make up that hour the next day or over the weekend when I knew my husband would be busy with his own work.
In my opinion, that’s the secret to work life balance: choose the better thing. Some days, that will be saying yes to an extra hour of work, but other times, it will mean wrapping up work an hour early to spend time with family or a friend.
For example, this week, this looked like taking a short walk with my son who seems to be growing by the day, and then working in the evening after he went to sleep.
What have you learned about work life balance? How are you putting that into practice?
This week’s favorites
Motherhood Minute (Newsletter)
My friend Chanel started a newsletter talking about issues women face from the perspective of a mother and it is so worth reading. You can subscribe here!
SHE with Jordan Lee Dooley: How to Create a Life You Really Like (Podcast)
I've been listening to this podcast episode over the last week in short tidbits, and there was actually something about work life balance that stood out to me: You can have it all if you love all that you have. Basically, we get to define what “having it all” means to us, and that often looks like choosing contentment and what we already have. Such a good listen!