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As early as 6 years old, I remember being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I originally wanted to be a teacher since I loved my first grade teacher. However, as the years passed, I learned more about other careers and I constantly changed my mind. In the third grade, I wanted to be an ice skater like Michelle Kwan. During the seventh grade, I wanted to be a singer like Britney Spears. By the ninth grade, I decided that I wanted to be a medical doctor. When I got to college, my ideal career shifted.
In my twenties, my end goal was to be a tenured professor at a research university, conduct research, publish journal articles, teach the next batch of academicians, and so forth. I wanted to create change in the world and be an activist. Most of my time was either spent going to school, working, or volunteering. Even when I got married and started having children, I never strayed from my goal.
Then one day, I saw two posts that were shared on Facebook that completely flipped my whole world upside down. The first post was along the lines of “If you were to die today, your workplace would replace you tomorrow BUT your family and friends will be the ones to grieve you and remember you.” And the second post was “I don’t want my children to remember me as a survivor, but I want them to remember me as happy and living my life to its fullest.”
Within the last few years, I have been reanalyzing my life and my life goals. I have come to terms with the fact that I would be content with almost any job that would allow me to have a work-life balance. By cutting back on volunteering, it had freed up more of my time to focus on my children. Also, I started focusing on my self-care and doing things that I enjoy such as reading leisure books, exercising 3-4 times a week, getting monthly massages, going on more vacations/weekend getaways, and spending time with my friends and family.
Through these changes, I realized that I am happier within myself, my family, and my life. I am far from perfect, but I am no longer living with a tunnel vision where my career is my sole focus. I have broaden my view and learned to embrace every part of my life.
So my question for you is, how are you balancing your work and life? Are you content with where you are? What changes would you like to do? And what steps are you going to take to get to where you want to be in life?
ARA COUNSELING 