Work/Life Balance

Work/life balance is not a separate being. We lived with it daily before COVID-19. We are fine with Jason having to hop on a work call or send e-mails or texts while he is home because it gives him the ability to be home and engaged with us as a family rather than being in the office for all hours during the week or having to go in on the weekend. We have come to realize that his work and our life can co-exist. We all benefit from this integration. He can be home and doing fun things with us or working with the kids on homework or hiking, etc and not feel like he is missing out on getting work done. Knowing he can respond when needed or take an hour sitting in the same room with us to get work done alleviates his stress and involves him with the family. Jason read a good book on it once by David Dewolfe about living an integrated life and it really helped to shift our mindset.

So during this time of COVID-19 maybe take the time to think about an integrated life. If your kids walk in on conference calls or you forget to put a conference call on mute while trying to make lunch for your kids don't worry about it. It is part of life. While sometimes it might feel embarrassing I think we should all see it as normal. Do we think"OMG what a loser" because their kids walked in? No, we find it funny or cute and it makes you a little more human. We learn more about ourselves and our family when we see our spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, parents etc working. The professional side of ourselves is often hidden from our home life and now it is there for everyone to see. I read on social media about how people are learning things about their spouse. Comments like, "I'm married to the circle back guy" or the "stick a pin it is guy" etc. We do behave differently in the workplace because we need to be more professional or the situations just call for different types of conversations than at home. I think it is fun to see the business side.  I don't actually get to see much of Jason's business side since he goes upstairs into our office, closes the door, and works all day. Our home life is there for his work to see though (our kids are older though so they don't walk in on his conference calls). We had a good laugh when one of Jason's co-workers pointed out the diversity in our bookshelf that is behind Jason on all of his video calls. We hadn't really thought about it before but we have Rosamunde Pilcher (romance), David Baldacci (Suspense), Dr Seuess, The Couples series (thanks 1987 middle school scholastic catalog), and Leading Geeks, Steve Jobs, Learning Czech and many other varied reading options along with some amazing childhood artwork :).