Work-life balance is a myth; you can't balance it ever. Those who lecture on how to balance are straight liars because you can't really balance them except in a few exceptional cases or if there are extra facilities on one side. At least I haven’t seen anyone balancing them properly; there is always a dilemma to pick which one to prioritize, and the other needs to be sacrificed more or less.
If I were to talk about yesterday, in the office, from the morning, I was like, “I will take a break today for an hour or so, I have some off-the-record tasks to do, I need to be done with them today.” You may say Why will I be taking such a break during office hours, Why won't I? Even after the office, I was called if I could help them to respond to an emergency incident. I sat twice yesterday. So can’t I take breaks if needed? I guess I can, for sure, and there won't be any delays to the assigned tasks for me.
So, what happened yesterday, while I was looking for a chance to take that break of mine, I was deep dived into tasks. So much engaged that I had to take a very little for my lunch, rush back to my seat, and act accordingly. From straight 9 to 5, I had to keep things going smoothly, and couldn't even take a break for 10 minutes. There was so much workload and pressure that I was going through.
Okay, I reached home around 6.00 pm. Thinking of taking some rest and sitting down to finish the tasks that are due, I couldn't take the break that I wanted to take during office hours. I need to get done with them as soon as possible. But, the irony of life, I need to balance life, haha. There are tasks to fulfill here as well. Like taking her for a walk, some quality time, gossiping, helping with household chores, and more. I mean, I need to maintain the family as well.
So after all of these, when it's finally time to go to bed, I was like, “Wait a minute, I got pending tasks to do, it's already 12.30 AM. Whatever, lemme take a 30-minute rest and then sit back to work, there are countless days where I stayed awake till 3 am, 4 am, what's new today.” And I am on the bed, trying to take a little bit of rest, keeping the phone and closing my eyes. To my surprise, I was so tired that I fell asleep. After an hour, when I woke up a little bit, I was like, "WTF, I was supposed to sit for the pending tasks, why am I sleeping?” I tried to wake up from the bed, but my body was pleading with me not to get up.
It's valid, the hectic journey I need to go through while going to the office and returning back needs no more explanation for the pains, then sitting on the chair for eight hours straight, coming home, I need to go through other stuff. The mental pressure throughout the whole day is also there. So, I didn't force myself, I let myself rest, the body needs some relaxation, otherwise I will fall sick pretty badly.
And that's how days are going, you talk about work-life balance? Come on, man! Try a little bit, you're gonna figure out how hectic it is to try to achieve balance. Well, it's not like I left them destroyed. I am trying to do so, keep them in control, but the balance is never perfect; there are always some tradeoffs, and I have accepted the fact as well.