I just got back to hot, hot Singapore for several days now and am
now writing this week’s Jobscope entry in the middle of the night.
I’m doing this because I have just ended a rather long day (days
seem so much longer when you are in the heat most of the time
sweating a way…) but wanted to capture and share with you two
conversations I had today.

I was catching up with two friends separately today and
interestingly, our conversations followed a very similar thread. To
give you a little background, both these two friends are
high-flying executives in large organizations and both have the
word “Director” in their job title. One of them is in her early 30s
and the other in her early 40s.

Over breakfast, the friend in her early 30s spoke about needing to
take time off to enjoy her life and do the things she loves,
emphasizing the importance of a balanced life and not to take her
work too seriously and risk her health doing so. She talked how she
is managing to reschedule her life so that she doesn’t work so hard
and long any longer but instead, she is spending time to pursue
hobbies and interests. She has also found herself healthier since
making the changes.

Over dinner, my other friend in her early 40s spoke of how life is
different now since changing her job a month ago. She is no longer
stressed-out and, in fact, finds life and work at a good pace now.
Her high-blood pressure has miraculously “disappeared” and she no
longer needs to take any medication. She now has time for her love
life and reckoned that even though she took a big pay-cut with the
job switch, it was well worth it.

Did you get the thread of the two conversations?

They were about the need to slow down and balance life; and that
life is meant to be lived and enjoyed and not to be “worked away.”

I must say that such conversations are rather common amongst
mid-career professionals. It is a phase that city executives go
through and some may even call in “mid-life crisis.”

For those of you who are still studying or are young professionals,
this is something that you might have heard or read about. But I
would think that it is something that is rather hard to really
understand at this point in your life.

Most of us are taught to study hard, earn a good degree, find a
good job, work hard, earn lots of money and that is when you are
successful and fulfilled. The problem is that when we finally get
to the level when we are working very hard and earning lots of
money, we actually do not have the time (and life, for some) to
enjoy our lives.

At the time, we begin to associate with our work and achievements.
Our work becomes us and we become our work. The pressure to
continue to hang on to the work, work harder and earn more gets
even greater at that time that stopping, or slowing down, is not an
option. We start to think that without the work, we are nobody and
so, we are afraid of losing that identity.

Is it necessary to go through all that trouble and years just to
realize that there is a big difference between success and
fulfillment? That life can be enjoyed NOW? That life needs to be
balanced? That it is possible to achieve without striving?

Let me say this straight: There are only two things we know for
sure in life -  Death and Taxes. The rest of life is up to you to
choose.

In the long run, we are all going to be dead.

Question is “What are you going to do with your life between now
and then?”