To anticipate, the term "work life balance" for me is such a preposterous sentence. As if to work doesn't mean to live. I think when you are a child you don´t think about it as much. Your parents go to work, come back and sometimes as well on Saturdays or Sundays they work. For me that was normality, my parents, especially my father worked a lot, but it never seemed to be a bad thing or as if he didn´t live. And guess what- I think it´s because he is working with his ZDE. When I started working during summer in my youth I went crazy sometimes. Time passed, the holidays passed and I had to work rather than live. I often thought how my parents could manage their life with all this work and didn't understand how this "work balance" thing works out. While studying or rather while starting to work in my actual profession I got closer to the point. I more and more understood or am understanding the principle of it. It´s not to find the "work life balance", but to find and manage work as part of a happy life.
I am a perfectionist in every range of my life which is likewise blessing or curse, as I want everything in my life to be perfect and to make me happy, which obviously ins' t always possible. But it is possible to find a way which is as close, as possible, to perfect. But how can we get there? For me the first question was, what I would like to do, what would make me happy, who would make me happy to work with, which constellation of arrangement would work out for me- or as John Strelecky says in his book "The big five for life"- what is my ZDE ("Zweck der Existenz")? So I tried to frame my ZDE, I tried to think about my "big five for life", which are, how John Strelecky defines it, five of the most important things I want to reach in life. And I tried to or am trying to figure out how my life, in this case especially my working life, has to look like to get to reach these. What I learned, and I know there is still so much to figure out, is that my business has to have a connection with my own ZDE, for me to be a fulfillment rather than just a job.
Now one can say, what if the ZDE or the "big five" change. Well of course this can happen and probably will happen a little, as in life things never stand still. But I dare to say that if you really find your ZDE and not only your ZDM (Zweck des Moments) it won´t change so much that you couldn´t adapt your life situation, or in this context your work situation. It´s funny for me to write about this topic, as I honestly would talk about myself, as a very skittish person, which I am not proud of, but I have to admit. The reason why I am still talking about it is because I think, I really have to work this out in order to be happy and fulfilled in life. Seeing all this people not being happy in their jobs and just craving the weekends until they reach pension makes me sad and anxious at the same time, as I really want to prevent this dearly. Since I am thinking that a lot of people are dealing with similar thoughts or sorrows I want to share my thoughts and may take headaches from some of you- I guess we are in this together. Don´t worry- find your ZDE and be happy!
Comments