The work-life balance

I have felt overworked, exhausted, and honestly a bit down the last few days, so I decided to take a break and play some video games, something that's always relaxing for me. It was Thanksgiving break after all — although for me that's not really a thing of course since I'm not employed by anyone — but still, it's the holidays and we all deserve a break every once in a while, don't we? Plus, sadly this year I spent it alone, so I figured why not just take some time to relax.

We control our lives

The concept of the work-life balance is something I wrestle with a lot. We have this cultural notion of an 8-hour day being a productive one, but is that really anything other than historical precedent? 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, 8 hours of leisure — sounds like the perfect balance, right? But the reality is that we don't get anywhere near 8 hours of leisure time and many of us not even a full 8 hours of sleep because life maintenance chores and errands take up so much time. At least an hour for meal prep, cleaning, and eating, time for grocery shopping, checking and responding to emails and messages, going to appointments, plus commuting around everywhere takes time, too. Whereas many people are hounded by their employers if they don't work exactly 8 hours, we may only end up with a few hours of day to ourselves. Is this healthy? Is this what we really want?

I think people don't realize that—in a broad sense—we as a civilization are the architects of our own experience. The world operates in a certain way now (it's kind of a mess), but it doesn't have to be this way forever. We work 8 hours because we've been led to believe this is normal or some sort of "reasonable" standard, but is really what's best for us? More and more research shows that huge numbers of people are overworked, and being overworked leads to increased stress and a laundry list of health problems including impaired sleep, depression, heavy drinking, diabetes, impaired memory, and heart disease. Plus, it's often worse for our employers too because overworked employees are less productive at work, we make more mistakes, and there's a greater risk of workplace accidents. Maybe it's time we reflect on what a better balance would be.

A duty to do good

For me personally, on the one hand I feel pressure (from myself) to work at least 8 hours a day (and usually more) because I don't get paid for what I do, so I feel like I have to make up for it by working even harder than I would normally. On the other hand, this is my life — the prime of my life in fact — so shouldn't I be spending some significant portion of it doing exactly what I want to do? I do want to work on my non-profit, no doubt, but I also want to spend more time with friends, go outside more, travel more, scuba dive more, and pick up some hobbies that I wish I could spend more time on. I would love to learn how to make music, for example — maybe even learn how to sing.

But I usually tell myself I can't do these things—I shouldn't—and that I have a duty to work hard because there are people out there suffering and I have the power to help them. A person who doesn't know me may dismiss that as some sort of "Messiah complex", but it has nothing to do with my own importance, ego, or me believing I'm some sort of "divine" savior (my parents would laugh at the irony of that 😂). I have zero desire to "be" anyone — if the world was functioning perfectly and I could choose to do anything with my life, I would probably just go back into engineering and make awesome products for people, maybe dabble in music, and be a part-time scuba diving instructor for fun on the side. My desire to help others is based on the simple fact that I have been given a great deal of advantages in life and as a good, just human being I feel it only right to use those advantages to help those around me.

With great power comes great responsibility

The mere fact that I'm (mostly) white, a male, and an American are huge advantages right off the bat, as tragic as that is to face (the fact that we are not yet all given equal opportunity regardless of our race, gender, and country of birth). I was born in poverty, abandoned by my birth mother, and spent three years in a foster home. I know what it's like to barely scrape by, I know what it's like to be abandoned by everyone around you, and it sucks. I was very fortunate to be adopted and raised in an upper-middle class suburban environment that instilled in me the importance of a college education which I used to eventually land a job at NASA and become financially successful (to some extent). I'm not a millionaire by any stretch, but more comfortable than most people around the world, 85% of whom live on less than $30/day. So these are all things I'm grateful for, and they represent advantages I feel pressured by my own conscience not to squander.

I'm motivated by the fact that I know I'm trying to do good in the world, even if it's slow at first. I could just volunteer in a soup kitchen or travel abroad and help people directly by giving them the resources they need day to day, but is that the most effective way for broad, long-term impact? I see that as giving a person a fish rather than teaching them how to fish, and even if you teach a person how to fish, it doesn't fix the underlying problem that our societies are not providing the long-term, all-encompassing support people need to thrive. In other words, teaching a person to fish solves food problems, but what about housing, education, healthcare, and numerous other issues... There are deep, systemic problems that need to be addressed if broad, long-term change is to really happen, and that's why I'm focused on raising awareness, empowering people through education, and building an organization full of committed people who can collaborate to make effective change at scale.

And so I try to work hard, at least until everyone can enjoy the comforts and advantages I do, such as they are. It's weird writing that because it sounds like I live a luxurious lifestyle… 😅😆 Everything's relative, right, so to some it is, but if you ask me the way I live certainly shouldn't be considered luxurious—it should be the minimum of what people have. The reality is that I'm 35 and I live in a small, crowded mobile home I rent with 3 other people to save money because I can't afford a home. I mostly eat simple, home cooked meals to keep down costs, and I'm the type of person who keeps the oven door open in the winter after I use it to let the extra heat warm the house, even if only in some small way. But at least I have a roof over my head, at least I have decent meals, and at least I have an oven. At least I have clean running water, and electricity, and internet (even though it keeps going out—thanks Xfinity), and most importantly the relative freedom to pursue what I want—not everyone has these things and it's easy to forget that.

I only hope that at least in some small way my efforts may someday help to make it so that everyone—as a baseline—has what I have.