The “Work-Life Balance” Myth

Now a days we often search for “Work-Life Balance” but we all know what that really means: “I want to work less!”

This concept comes from a distorted view of life where “work” and “life” are two separate things. That they are actually two things that go against each other, and by getting one you miss out on the other. But truth is, what we are seeking isn’t really balance at all. Balance is boring and nobody wakes up in the morning exited to have a balanced life. A completely balanced life is the death of ambitions, dreams and what makes life worth living.

What we really want is a “satisfying experience of life”.

Satisfaction is what we need to look for, not balance. A professional and personally satisfied life is highly desirable and definitely not easy to achieve but thats because working hard is the necessary pre-factor of satisfaction.
Note that satisfaction is not pleasure, an activity that gives pleasure (Like eating for example) does not extend after the activity itself. What would make you feel more satisfied and better about yourself? Eating 3 cupcakes or working out for 1 hour?

Note that pleasure and satisfaction are two completely different things. The pleasure that may come from eating 3 cupcakes does not extend past the actual activity of eating them – therefore pleasure eating is not a satisfactory activity. Working out, on the other hand may not bring immediate gratification but it will produce a sense of satisfaction afterwords.

Working many hours is not a bad thing as long as you are satisfied with it. I, for example, work more than anybody I know but I’m satisfied with my life, I know that satisfaction comes from hard work and often comes after tremendous stress.

Success requires sacrifice, it is difficult, and thats why is rare.

I have the luck to do something love so much that sometimes I need strength to stop working to have dinner with my family and I used to feel guilty about it but I now came to understand that you can’t have it all, but you also don’t want it all.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

– Confucius

So, if you find yourself counting down the hours of work you do in a day, then you you might need to re-evaluate your work process or your job altogether.

If you need guidance on finding your true purpose here are a couple of resources that has inspired this post and I think will help you big time:

 

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Ignazio Lacitignola

Founder & Designer

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Ignazio Lacitignola

Founder & Designer

Ignazio, or “Igi” for friends and colleagues, is an Italian designer, creative, and entrepreneur. He feels weird talking about himself in 3rd person, but for the sake of this bio, he will.

Ignazio has been a curious creative since he can remember and embraced digital design as soon as he could afford a computer and an internet connection that wasn’t 56k dial-up.

Ignazio grew up in the ghetto side of Milano, Italy, and somehow managed to graduate with honors at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, without ever going to jail.

He followed his passion and moved to the USA to study User Experience in San Francisco where he launched his career with Meno Design, a digital design studio focused on simplifying digital experiences down to their core and learning through experimentation.

He believes that every piece of design can be a work of art and he is still learning to balance his OCD attention to details with time of execution.

Despite his friendly and calm appearance he deeply enjoys Italian swearing whenever spotting bad design decisions. Which is quite often, however he is quite friendly, you should say hi.