This work-life balance aim sucks.

There are endless self-help tips to achieve this.

But the actual pursuit of it - as it stands in mainstream society - is literally useless.

It’s basically saying "I have work and this is separate to the life I want to live. Furthermore, to live the life I want to live, I have to separate work from life so that I can be present here in that life I want to live.”

Well, you can’t be present in life fully if that work is not a fulfilling part of it. It will ruin the life.

This is a majorly misunderstood concept (just like humility) that builds on a very weak foundation.

This term, in and of itself, creates major mental health problems in us.

Efforting to create more ‘work-life balance’ doesn’t address the root cause of a burned out and unfulfilling life.

We think there is something wrong with us when we can’t recover enough from the doing the things we don’t want to do and then don’t have enough time or enough energy capacity left to follow our own whims and what truly brings us joy and makes us happy.

We think there is something wrong with us when we mostly do things that bring us joy and don’t engage in being ‘RESPONSIBLE’ and doing mostly things that feel hard and that we don’t like.

And HOW are YOU living your life? It’s your choice you know?

And this BALANCE - we all want so bad.

We want the good wholesome feeling that we are flying effortlessly through life enjoying every moment and making it worth living.

This balance lies in NOT the work vs life aim.

This balance IS IN the integrity vs not integrity with yourself.

Ok, say you work in a job you HATE be it as an employee or business owner.

You need to make money to survive, of course, but also to keep up with buying things that will make you look like a successful member of society.

You wake up every day, go to work, hate being there, hate the people there and NOT TO MENTION, you use your most precious energy in a place your body abhors.

Then you come home have no energy left. YOU and your loved ones get the worst of what you have to offer because now, not only are you tired from working all day, you are utterly depleted from being in an environment you hate.

Your heart is tired. You can’t do anything else.

Well, you’re going to maybe do some exercise, make/eat dinner, watch shows to relax and go to sleep to do it ALL AGAIN the next day.

Then does the ‘balance’ come in on the weekend?

Well, the weekend is pretty packed, you gotta clean the house, run errands and maybe can get in a couple of social events with family and friends at the most - that is, if you don’t need to veg out all weekend just to partially recover from your entire week of heart energy depletion only to go back on Monday to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.

THIS IS NOT BALANCE.

If you are hating the choices you are making right now, there is NO time-off that is going to make up for this and that is going to give you ‘balance’ in work-life.

If, on the other hand, the work you do, whatever that is, mostly gives you joy and you love being there doing it, you get deeply and foundationally replenished.

Sure you might get tired from working a lot but your energy doesn’t get sucked out.

You actually get REPLENISHED. You feel good. This work is not separate; it is a part of your life.

You go home replenished and now, you can quickly transition into this other LIFE part. Work is a part of your life and it needs to be fully and utterly included in it.

This is what we need to use our efforts and energy for to figure out why we feel so tired and heavy all the time.

When you are consciously CHOOSING to do something that you know does not bring you joy everyday, you will never achieve balance in the wholesome sense of this concept.

It becomes frustrating. Life feels HARD.

Everything will be EXTRA hard, EXTRA depleting - like swimming through honey kind of thing.

Alternately, when you are consciously CHOOSING to engage mostly with things, people, activities, media that bring you joy, then you are going to start to ‘levitate’ and it will be so much easier to stay in the present moment.

The challenges or ‘problems’ are going to still pop up but now it will be different.

Now, you are swimming in a foundation of wholesomeness - you love yourself, you respect yourself, you trust yourself - challenges and problems are viewed through this screen now and there is an underlying peace and gratefulness in dealing with them that is not there otherwise.

Are you CHOOSING the daily actions of your life based on what you need and want and resonate with OR based on what others want for you?

You may be thinking, “well you are going to have to do things you don’t like at least some of the time”

Yes you do. Like cleaning the house, washing the dishes, waiting in line at the bank etc.

But aren’t these already enough though? Do we need CHOOSE more unpleasant things just so that we feel like we have the right to belong here on this Earth?

No we don’t.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to quit everything right now -

BUT,

YOU CAN start taking consistent steps everyday towards a life of more integrity with yourself.

Here are three things to START WITH that put me on that trajectory the fastest and that have a high probability of helping you too:

Once you start doing these three steps everyday things will start to COMPOUND so quickly, it will blow your mind. You will then need to expand.

Ultimately,

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