Work Life Balance Does Not Work For Me
As women, we have a number of identities: wife or partner; mother; daughter; daughter in law; friend; working professional; and the list goes on. All of our various identities pull us in different directions. What identity gets prioritized today? And what happens when a sick child upends our carefully planned day? We drop everything, if we can, and that sick child becomes our top priority.
As a wife and mother of two, I have tried to balance those identities with my professional career as I constantly strived to find work life balance while I am pulled in so many directions.
Work life balance implies that there is a state where everything is in equilibrium. But my life does not fit into any kind of equilibrium.
I was striving for something that did not exist. At least not for the many identities I have. And in the meantime, I was losing something…I was losing myself. I was losing my personal identity as “Sangeeta”…the unique human being I used to be.
As I continued to think about this, I realized that what I needed was integration…of my whole life, not just parts of it. I needed to find a way to bring all these different identities I have into something that represented who I was as a whole person…where one or two identities did not dominate. I also had to find the space for me…where I could do things that were just for me. Where I could find time for things that I enjoyed. And that I could integrate into my life…not on the periphery and not as an afterthought, but as an actual part of my life.
I’ll be documenting my Whole Life Integration journey and I hope to learn from others who have decided that they want to live a life that incorporates all of who they are, not just the parts that “should” be doing x, y, or z.
If this resonates with you, please share your story with me. I want to hear what other women are doing and how this has impacted their lives.