Last weekend Les and I decided to spend a few nights camping in the Adirondacks; we made reservations online via a phenomenal website Camping in the Adirondacks: The Adirondack Mountains Official Travel Guide. We charged our flashlight and digital camera batteries [NiMh], packed up some stuff, and started east for about a 5 hour drive.

Something about the road always puts us at ease; it clears our heads and tunes the mind. We had a lot of time to talk.

I was not happy with my job, she knew that, I knew that. I had little balance in my life, relying on huge swings in enjoyment during the weekends to get by. Here I was, 5 months out of college and I already subscribed to the "Thank God its Friday, oh God it's Monday" view of life. We had gone through the analysis again and again and the reasons stacked like winter wood along side a Montana cottage; we had enough to last a while. Weeks prior I had come to similar conclusions with carpool friends as we all rode from one city to another, 120 miles each day. I continued as one by one they left to find more fulfilling opportunities close to home. I drove on.

It's a great company, and it is not a bad position, they are great people, in fact it is a terrific opportunity for someone just starting out to be molded into a manager and to network their way to higher responsibility. I had thought it could work. Over time the hours and numbers stopped adding up; I didn't see the long term relationship like I once had. In my case it just wasn't for me.


This may seem like the end of the process, decision done, find something else, move on....but there was one big problem. I don't think I know what I want to do. To make matters worse, Les and I had come to the same carbon steel conclusion that the "save it all for the end" deferred life plan was not for us.

Conflicted, I hosted the equivalent of a small telethon with with my parents and I brainstormed into oblivion with Les during what would become about 16 walks around the neighborhood. I was excited and scared; we had crunched the numbers and we could afford a period of exploration, but I was worried that I might not find something that interests me, instead trading one poor balance situation for another.

More research led me to Keith H. Hammonds article titled Balance is Bunk where he discusses the challenges we face trying to incorporate old closed minded ideas from an industrial economy to today's global knowledge based world. We all strive for a well calibrated life but Hammonds' cautions that imbalance and anxiety are part of the human condition; they are a central part of our existence and a source of creativity and drive. Adjusting your working hours produces little result....

Simply cutting back on work inevitably fails, because in real life, success in work is predicated on achievement. In a competitive business environment -- which is to say, every business environment -- leadership requires commitment, passion, and, to be blunt, a lot of time.

I saw both sides at my job; those keeping their heads down just trying to get by and those with 60 hour work weeks, red bulls, and a blackberry tethered to their belts. I was missing that spark, that extra something that makes the "abandonment of self" digestible in the pursuit of success or money.


Is there such a thing as a happy workaholic? The answer of course is yes. Even more ominous is the fact that there are those workaholics that don't care if they are happy or not. According to Hammonds: "The global economy is the antibalance", and there are those out there who will work...very hard at great sacrifice....and for much less than they are paying you.

So...if balance is bunk, what do we do?
How hard can it be to find something you enjoy, something with a work life balance that preserves and instills energy each morning instead of dread? Does such a thing exist, or as Brip Blap writes, is integration the key?

Why is it that we view work/life balance as a struggle, a conflict to be resolved? I worry about it more than I worry about most things in my life - and I’m a worrier by nature - but I am trying increasingly to focus not so much on work/life balance but on how to move towards integrating work and life together in the future. I don’t think balance is truly possible. If you work a long commute away from home, most of your waking time is spent away from “life.” If you spend all of your time at home, it’s hard to develop your career or interests. Again, figuring out a way to get away from selling your time for money is key. The key is not to strive for balance, but to find work you enjoy and can integrate with your “life,” instead of working hard then retiring early, or thinking that working an eight-hour day with a three-hour commute and having a few hours at home is balance. Figuring out a way to do it in a blended way is better than trying to figure out a balanced way - because if you sell your time for money, there will never be balance.

Conclusively, I see two main routes to take:

1. Forget that balance may be bunk and skew the work life equation in your favor through creativity and brute force. Can't find a job you like? Consider the D.E.A.L principles from The 4 hour work week ( Find it at: your local library, $9 at Half.com, $12 at Amazon.com) Read more here.
   
   • Definition - figure out what a you want, see through society's "expectations" and challenge the definition of success, figure out what it will really cost to get you where you want to be.
   • Elimination - time management and not managing time. This is achieved by applying the 80/20 rule to focus only on those tasks that contribute the majority of benefit. There's a difference, Ferriss says, between efficiency and effectiveness. The books emphasis is on effectiveness.
   • Automation - is about building a sustainable, automatic source of income. This includes techniques such as drop-shipping, automation, Google Adwords, Adsense, and outsourcing. We are building our own small bridge with alternative sources of income and new ideas in the works. Current income sources tracked on this spreadsheet.
     
   • Liberation - the dedication to the successful automation of one's lifestyle and the liberation from a geographical location and job. The book asserts that technology such as email, instant messaging and Internet-enabled pda's complicate life rather than simplify it. Incidentally, Ferriss notes that if somebody has a regular job, the order of steps will be DELA, not DEAL.
     
2. Ignore balance entirely as it becomes inconsequential if you enjoy what you do. Proper balance is not ideal and is extremely challenging to create and maintain, and a better option, as Brip Blap outlined above, may be the integration of enjoyment and work. Who cares how much of the day you spend working if you enjoy the majority of your time spent doing it. Your definition of enjoyment will change over time but if what you do for income can adapt then your result will remain the same.

Boiling all this down what I have learned is: True Job security is not the abandonment of self for work, it's the confidence and ability to find, tweak, or create new sources of income in the pursuit of enjoyment. Security is the ability to create and seize opportunity. Fear, inaction, and the acceptance of ones unhappy situation is the real enemy.

....So with folders in hand I had pressed the button. The orange light lit and the dull hum grew louder as the elevator rose. I had transitioned my responsibilities, I had packed up my things, I had thanked those that helped me to have the courage to explore. I had made the decision and I was moving on.

As Les and I continue to investigate alternative opportunities and I head out to new interviews next week, along with my resume and a pen, I will be bringing a new outlook. I know wherever I end up I will always have job security.