Are you working to live, or living to work?

WORK-LIFE balance is something people constantly fight for and is a hot topic of discussion in the workplace. This is particularly evident in businesses with a large proportion of generation Y personnel.

This is a generation of people who ‘work to live’, with their jobs providing the income that allows them to do what they really want to do, which is not usually spending more time at work. This differs from prior generations who ‘lived to work’ and in time reaped the benefits of their hard work, both in terms of status and material wealth. Does this mean our future is resting in the hands of a generation that is not really interested in work, but merely tolerating it to pay the bills?

Some would argue that most generation Y people have not yet discovered passion in their work and so have adopted a ‘work to live’ attitude. When they eventually find a job they love, instead of just tolerating it, their proportion of work-life balance will evolve.

Take Mark Zuckerberg, for instance. By the age of 23 (in 2007), he became the world’s youngest billionaire as a cofounder of Facebook. He developed and launched Facebook in his spare time while still at college; and because he was so passionate about programming he did not worry about his work-life balance at college or how many parties he was missing out on. He is still known to work 16 hours a day.

Does this mean work-life balance is overrated? Historically speaking, anyone who has achieved anything of significance has not worried about their work-life balance. In most cases they have lived an extremely unbalanced life.

Pat Rafter did not get to the top of the tennis world by only playing tennis on the weekends. Bill Gates did not get to be one of the richest men in the world by working 35 hours a week and Mother Teresa did not win a Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work between nine and five on weekdays.

The common factor between all these people is their passion for what they do, whether it is playing tennis, programming software or helping people. They all loved what they did and were willing to work at it without worrying about their work-life balance. Loving their vocation also meant that they did not feel like they were missing out on a work-life balance.

With its large number of entrepreneurs, Western Australia is a prime example of this passion. These entrepreneurs are willing to work longer hours as they are passionate about their businesses, whether it is a mining company, your local independent supermarket or a hairdresser. When you are passionate about your work it stops being ‘work’ and the concept of work-life balance goes out the window. As with everything there are dangers to an unbalanced life including burnout, stress, health concerns, neglecting family, friends and, most importantly, neglecting yourself. Everyone has different tolerance levels to these issues, but what is important to note is that all of these can be managed.

Many people have taken a path that they may not be passionate about, or they are yet to discover what they really are passionate about. They do what they have to do at the moment while deferring their passion and excitement to an undetermined time in the future. With WA’s low unemployment rate, this provides a key source of labour to the mining industry.

For a limited time people may be willing to work on a fly-in, fly-out basis for a higher salary so they can pay off a mortgage, save for a home deposit or a wedding. Once they have met their goal, they then move into an area they are passionate about, whether it be a different field, a more senior role or a new job location of their choosing. Most of the time this shift occurs far too late and sometimes only when they retire.

By focusing too much on work life-balance and tolerating our jobs we are confining ourselves to a life of mediocrity. Wouldn’t you rather do something you love doing and get paid for it, even if it meant that you would have an unbalanced life? In the words of Confucius, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Bhavesh Nathoo is a manager at Oyster Consulting, which provides corporate strategy and busines planning services to the resources industry.

Contact Bhavesh on 9320 9999 | 0405174886

bhavesh@oysterconsulting.com