How Work-Life Balance Makes People Miserable

“So, who thinks searching for a good balance between your work life and your personal life is important? Please raise your hand.” The hands of all the graduates went up instantly. This didn’t surprise the commencement speaker, who surely expected this response. But her reaction surprised everyone in the hall, including me. “Well, I don’t,” she said dramatically. “You only have one life. And it’s a massive illusion — and a mistake — to think you have two separate lives that must be somehow kept in balance.” She ended her speech with an important life lesson from her career. “It’s important to look for work that satisfies you — work that defines you. Your future job should offer you flexibility and responsibility so that it will become an integral part of your whole life.” Then it was my turn to hand out the diplomas. But before I started, I thanked the commencement speaker for her inspirational talk and told her I endorsed her view. We shouldn’t focus on finding a work-life balance. Over the years, I have seen too many people making terrible choices in their efforts to find this perfect balance. And yet, everywhere I look, people continue to say we should search for work-life balance. What surprised me about the commencement speaker was not what she said but her willingness to challenge this unchallenged consensus. <a href="https://blog.startupstash.com/how-work-life-balance-makes-people-miserable-78bb2546c12f">Read More</a>