Creating Harmony is a Personal Choice
A “work-life balance” seems to be the nirvana that most of us strive to achieve. But what if this ideal state of equal proportions of work and life is only mythical? How can we debunk this myth to take a harmonious approach on our work and personal lives? Our Managing Director, Alex Iskandar Liew, shares his thoughts on how the MCO Period can be the perfect opportunity to find that state of work-life equilibrium.
Truth be told, the Movement Control Order (MCO) has provided me a long-awaited solace. One that has allowed me to condense, rationalise and move myself forward optimistically from the last 6 months’ worth of thoughts and futile planning.
I’ve sat in almost every corner of the house, sometimes with the laptop, sometimes with a pen in hand, sometimes just piecing and compartmentalising thoughts in my head, hoping against hope that these thoughts will start to express themselves as soon as the perfect words come to my mind.
Take for instance, right now, in the tranquillity of the MCO at 7am and the blank canvas that we all have in front of us every start of the day, we dwell sometimes in silence and sometimes, the morning is broken by the natural sounds of nature.
Well, it’s all relative. You see, this is the new norm for those not directly affected by the pandemic; for some who are, there are different sets of emotions altogether. And somewhere in between are those trying to find reasons for their present being.
So, our Manager, Nadine, had tasked the team to “share our individual positive stories during the MCO period” as part of COMMUNICATE’s 2nd anniversary celebratory musings. To me, this was a new activity that I’d readily welcome. It allowed, at least for me, to break away from the norm of the last one month plus where I felt the MCO and the working from home (WFH) concept has been incredibly intrusive. Necessary, I understand, but intrusive, nevertheless.
Then, it dawned on me that this was what has been lacking in some facets of my life. Yes, I do sneak out for a very quick 7km spin around the block just to break my monotonous day devoid of real social human interaction. But we become so engulfed in this conceptual MCO and WFH, that we remain all too focused on being industrious at work, even though we are in the luxury of our own home. We begin to discover that the 24 hours in our day throughout the MCO isn’t really that of our own. We have been busy because we seemingly must do many things as part of our scope of work during crisis. In fact, I find that I am far busier now that when I was actually at work proper.
I miss the whirring of the coffee machine, ambient noises, laughter and the “It’s lunch, what do we eat today?” at our cosy little office. I miss seeing each and everyone of the team physically. I miss peering into what they may be up to and on the occasion, break an uncomfortable silence in the office by simply asking, “So what are we doing today?” For some, it’s an “OMG, what do I intelligently have to tell him?” For others, it’s “Let me just answer him quickly to just get him off my case!” I honestly do miss all the little individual nuances that makes up the COMMUNICATE Team.
Our team holds weekly conference calls to keep ourselves updated with each other’s nuances.
The world has indeed changed and when we are able to nestle back in our office, COMMUNICATE would also need to change in some physical form as well. But it will be for the better, I am sure of that. Until then, we will have to manage this polarity. We will continue to balance what it is we seek, what it is we must do and what it is that we plan to do. Now more than ever, our thoughts become us.
And so, I am thankful for Nadine in reminding us to take a break from our monotony and pursuits. I am glad that we are able to take an hour or so to share our musings. She even wanted a selfie from all of us with a given set of parameters, so that required a lot of location recce to begin with. But it’s all good. We just have to remind ourselves that balance is not about getting the equilibrium of work, life or social interaction right. That’s a misnomer.
I believe it’s about us shifting our perspective. If we treat our lives at work as a separate entity, we will find ourselves going through the motions and missing out on some of life’s best experiences.
My take is: Don’t separate it.
Work is life.
Life is work.
It’s all life.
Life is all-encompassing. It does not pause for the 8 or 12 hours a day that you are working. It does not pause when we have to chase deadlines. It does not pause when your phone buzzes with a “to do list” from the boss. It also does not pause when we are socially communicating on the many virtual platforms that exist nor when we physically (are able to) interact with our loved ones.
Many have been striving for that mythical work-life balance and often get disappointed when we don’t manage to get our work-life into balance. Let’s stop striving because strive is difficult. Why not take a different approach?
And so, I am thankful for Nadine in reminding us to take a break from our monotony and pursuits. I am glad that we are able to take an hour or so to share our musings. She even wanted a selfie from all of us with a given set of parameters, so that required a lot of location recce to begin with. But it’s all good. We just have to remind ourselves that balance is not about getting the equilibrium of work, life or social interaction right. That’s a misnomer.
