In the last video, I talked about finding a balance between working, so sacrificing today for tomorrow, versus living in the moment, enjoying life today, possibly even describable as sacrificing tomorrow for today.
And somehow there’s a balance between too much of this building a better future versus too much putting it all in the present.
And yet I think it’s somehow incomplete to just look at this as being a balance of two opposites that are sort of fighting against each other.
Because there’s something so limited about having this perspective that’s all work, all sacrifice, on one side, and then all enjoyment on the other side.
It’s so difficult to constantly every day be making this switch.
And I see so many people have this difficulty, and I’ve had this as well where you wake up and “Oh, I have to go to work”, and then you know you go into this whole mental shift, say “OK, I’m going into work mode.” And now I go to work, do my workday, and now, especially at the end of the day, it’s often so difficult to say “OK, I’ve finished my work for the day.
I’ve finished my time of sacrificing for tomorrow, and now I can enjoy this moment.
I can enjoy the day.” And often it seems like there’s a very happy moment right after work.
Sometimes it can feel like a happy moment of release, where “Now I can stop sacrificing, I can stop suffering, and I can just enjoy today finally.” Although often it’s also this leftover feeling of stress and discomfort from work that doesn’t immediately disappear.
This feeling that all the tension of the workday sort of lingering into that little bit of free time that we have in the evening.
And if we are working, you know, a good full hours, how much time do you really get left over to enjoy life in the moment? There’s such a shifting cost between shifting between work and enjoying today, and then going back to work mode and enjoying today.
Even on the weekends, often behind on sleep during the week, so we catch up, finally have some free time, and then there’s what they call the Sunday blues, a feeling of anxiety, maybe, of approaching work.
And even without that, you get back to Monday morning and you have to shift back into work.
So this is maybe the the stereotypical extreme, if you really do not like your work, and you’re just doing it for a living, and you want to get all your living time somehow in the time outside work.
It seems like this is so difficult.
So it’s still important to find that balance between sacrifice for tomorrow and enjoying today, but it seems like a better way, if it’s possible, is somehow to blend the two, so it’s not the opposition of one against the other, but somehow combining the feeling, so that the sacrifice for tomorrow and the enjoyment of today can be simultaneous.
Now I’m really still working on how this can be achieved.
This is one of the most interesting things to me right now because this this seems to be the key to sustainable good work and sustainable happy living: this way of combining the sacrifice and work the discipline with the enjoyment.
So of course, if your work is itself enjoyable, this is great.
Then you can really get into it and enjoy it while you’re sacrificing.
While you know that you’re doing this work to sacrifice, to improve the future you can also enjoy it in the moment.
So finding some way to enjoy the work itself seems to be so powerful.
And even if it’s somehow boring work, somehow difficult to really get enjoyment out of it, it’s about the attitude.
Somehow in the attitude, it’s possible, I believe, to merge these feelings.
And maybe what it takes is this life perspective, this whole perspective, that to really understand that when I am working and sacrificing today, it is part of making this sustainable life that I can enjoy, so that this is part of the system.
It’s part of a full mix of working and enjoyment that goes together, so that even when I’m working, I can still feel how this is part of my overall life, which is also full of enjoyment and appreciation of life.
So this is just my beginning idea for this.
I would love to hear more ideas about how it is possible to combine working and enjoyment into one integrated system of living.
#workandplay #mixworkandplay #worklifebalance