The Belaboured Point

Came across this reaction to a speech by Cherie Blair calling for men and women to spend more quality time with their families instead of at work. The issue of work-life balance is important to me, although I'm not involved in any relationship to speak of. I guess it's because I forsee myself relinquishing ever greater amounts of time to job demands, for the next few months at least.

As many have noted, work-life balance is like a tryst with Jessica Alba: an alluring fantasy. For one thing, it requires being able to shrug off responsibility - and chances of advancement - at work (it's never the other way round; anyone ever had problems with too much 'life' and too little 'work'?). It takes someone special to be able to do this - or merely someone very, very rich (ok, I admit that was a cheap shot. I'm naturally envious of affluent slackers).

In my case, I started out thinking I should try to strike a balance between work and other demands. I still think it's possible, but I'm beginning to realise that the equilibrium is skewed a lot more towards 'work' than I would like. It's not a pleasant revelation.

It's probably a sign of my weakness and general spinelessness that I'm even perturbed by the thought of having to work long (i.e. >12) hours. I'm sure there are plenty of people here and in other countries who are working even longer for lower wages. I should probably feel privileged that I'm even in a position to be contemplating how to maintain work-life balance. Shame on me for my dilatory, bourgeoisie temperament, etc etc.

Now that the self-flagellation's over, I do wonder how many of my peers share my concerns about giving our lives over to work. I suspect many of us would love to heed Mrs Blair's call to step away from the office; whether we can is another matter entirely.