Family vs. Work: The Everlasting Struggle for Balance

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The word balance implies that there are multiple forces and weights pulling and pushing at different and sometimes opposite ends and directions.

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And it implies that somewhere, somehow, there is the possibility that those forces can be counterweighted in a way that allows something to achieve a peaceful, stoic central state. (I’m sure there is some math behind it, too.)

Does this (tortured) metaphor work when it comes to balancing one’s work and family life? Accidentally Retired takes a look in this guest post.

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After having kids and taking on the CEO role for my company all within the same time period, it became clear that there was going to be a push and pull between work and family. But no matter what I tried, my mental focus continued to drift back to the urgent, pressing, and hard-to-solve problems of running a company.

A Wobbly Wheel

Imagine the different aspects of your life as the spokes in a wheel: health, wealth, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, or however you divide it. If any of these are lacking, it makes a lopsided, wobbly wheel, causing you to crash. But if you keep the parts of your life balanced, your wheel is round, and you can roll easily — Derek Sivers, How to Live

Thankfully, a solution presented itself after a long and drawn-out divestiture process in which my brand was sold to another company.

The new company presented me with a ridiculous legal contract that no one in their right mind would sign. Realizing this was a sign, I negotiated severance and decided to take a mini-retirement.

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