Work / Life Balance is for Losers

At about midday while on a motorbike trip to Spain a couple years ago, Steve and I stopped at a gas / petrol station for fuel. The attendant came out and shoo'd us away, it was lunchtime and he was not going to serve us. "But, but, we have money, he's losing a sale!", I sputtered to Steve then and over the course of the next two weeks, unable to believe that someone would turn down a sale when we were standing right there with money in our hands. Steve's response, "He's probably going home to have lunch with his family." I, as a product of the American consumer culture, was simply stunned that someone would turn down a sale and it took me a while to come to an understanding that actually not every culture puts the same value on work and money as the Americans do. They value other things, such as lunch with one's family. That man didn't have work / life balance, he had a life which transcended his work.

I wonder if we all are the losers in trying to achieve the fabled work / life balance. There is something inherently wrong with that phrase and I take issue with its accuracy. Work is placed first indicating that it has priority or is most important, more important than life - that there is only work and everything else is lumped into the catch-all word life. And with today's 70-hour workweeks becoming more and more the norm, it's also not accurate, perhaps a better phrase would be 'work with a hint of life squeezed in around the edges'.

Now, to be clear, I am not anti-work. I loved what I did before we took off sailing and I still have 'life with a bit of work tucked in around the edges'. Well-considered work chosen after looking at all options and work which brings joy and excitement into one's life is a very good thing. I am against an assumption that work is the priority which must come first before life. I also believe the language and phrases we use drive behaviour - if we verbally put work first, it comes first in our thoughts and in our actions. Therefore and particularly in this instance, the language should be accurate.

If you look, much of the literature you read on achieving work / life balance is really on how to fit your life around work. There's a work focus rather than how to have a really great life that work is a part of:

"A fully human life is a life in balance, and that means giving due time to all of the things that enrich us, fulfill us, and make our lives worth living. When Freud said that work and love were essential components of a happy life, he didn't mean that these were one and the same thing."
Bruce Weinstein, PhD, The Ethics of Work-Life Balance, Business Week, March 27, 2009.

Life comes first and work is just one of life's components. In putting work first (particularly without the consideration discussed above), we all lose. There are many, many other components which should be included to bring the work / life balance phrase to a more accurate form - family, interests, health, etc. Sounds simple, but would we would think differently about the whole concept if we used a different phrase - 'Life Balance'?