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Cracking the Work – Life Balance Equation

Invariably answers to the most complexed questions are found in the simple situations that we all face on daily basis. My routine visit to the local vegetable vendor gave me a hint. He kept adding and removing tomatoes on his weighing scale and was struggling to get the exact balance. One of us had to act maturely to find a solution to this juggling and so I told him to stop it and charge me for the final weight on the scale. It is then that I realised, there was a similarity in this instance with my real life too where every day I was trying to strike a perfect balance between work and personal commitments. I had almost started believing that for a career woman, it was impossible to be a perfect mother every weekend, a healthy woman all year around and of course wife, friend, sibling and daughter.

That night I introspected and understood one thing, that you may be a fulltime housewife or a career woman or an enthusiast trying hard to mastering the craft of juggling between career and family like many of us do, it is your conscious choice. Naturally, you justify your decision and derive fulfillment from the deliberate choices that you have made. Of course, every choice brings with it some good and some bad lessons and this is what helps us to grow. So, that day I decided to be pragmatic in accepting myself rather than wrestling with the constant guilt of enacting one role and ignoring other.

I realised that if I was unhappy being at home, I would not have a positive influence on my daughter. I accepted the fact that I was not able to give her round the clock attention during her formative years, yet she became independent, responsible and far more prepared than children of her age to deal with the challenges of the real world. Concurrently, I figured out that if I was unhappy at work, I would be constantly stressed out and carry the same unhappiness home to make my and the lives of people around me miserable. So, I made the choice to take charge and do meaningful work that brings me joy and happiness.

It does not matter how we choose to live our lives, whether we work, choose to have children, choose not to have children, whatever we do, let us not make things harder for ourselves than they have to be. Let us accept that there is no such thing called perfect balance between work and home. If you choose a life of a housewife, be prepared to find happiness at home and if you have decided to be a career woman who juggles between work and home, then learn the art of tightrope walking.

In a nutshell, it should be our endeavour to strike a balance in whatever life we choose for ourselves. Let us be aware of the fact that when we call it a day after putting in  our best efforts, there should be no regrets but contentment that I gave my 100 percent

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