Work/Life Balance?
- Apr 15, 2014
- 3 min read
Why do I seem to find it easier to help and promote other peoples work?
I posted this question on social media earier today, but it's got me thinking quite deeply about how we all work. There are many people who wholly and truly believe in themselves and in what they do. But many of us doubt what we do, if we are good enough, or even if we're taking the right path in life?
Being able to do what you love for work is a wonderful blessing. It certainly does change the perspective of the work/life balance and, in my opinion, is one of the most precious gifts we can have .. if somewhat scary.
I personally am at a very happy stage of my working career and I sincerely hope it remains so for a long while to come. Despite the up's and down's that life throws upon us, and I've had a few of those in the last handful of years, a great equilibrium is found when you love what you do.
It certainly isn't an easy life to be totally dependent upon yourself for a living, but there is more to life than struggling in a working world where you are so inbalanced with the work/life pie chart or spread-sheet or monthly accounts (you get my drift..) that you forget to live. Bringing in a good crust but finding no happiness in work at all, isn't living!
Loving what you do and being good at it, or believing in your abilites is, for me, a difficult acceptance. Having passion to do what you do, being successful and enjoying it doesn't mean that you are good at it. I accept there are people for whom self promotion is second nature, but many of us are critical of ourselves and our work. When you believe in the abilities of someone else, a singer for instance, you can shout and tweet and send many messages out to the world about them (via social media), but why then can't some of us do that for ourselves? Is there a line where being critical and judgemental about our work hinders our progress?
When you love what you do, you are in the right place and have time to see around you all the good that others are doing. I sometimes feel I have two jobs - that of my own photography work and the other job as support to those I care about around me. That support can be simple help with a question, a problem or a more long term project.
Are these jobs or is this just life? Where does my work start and stop each day? For those two questions, I can't give you an answer. There are no boarders, boundaries or restrictions on me at all. I'm very lucky that I've had great support from others to be able to transition from coroprate work in the City to what I do today, but it hasn't been a tea party and still not without struggles. But becuase I love it, those struggles become niggles which seem easier to handle.
My blog started out with a question: "Why do I seem to find it easier to help promote other peoples work?" There is no real light-blub flashing moment to answer this. I'm not sure I've even covered anything to answer this question, other than finding out, that for me, work is my life & life is my work.
Comments