“…on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons.”
From The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

The New Economics Foundation published a report last week about the possibility of reduced working hours leading to a more sustainable future.

As far as I’m aware, the term work/life balance derives from the old, unsustainable, industrial growth model where life and work are viewed as separate and in conflict (work being regarded as something akin to slavery, which it still is effectively for many living in poverty or in debt-funded affluence).

In a  life sustaining social model, there are less clear boundaries between life and work. If we were  leading this kind of sustainable lifestyle, we would be so true to our purpose in life, our offering to the world,  that work that earned a living would be close in nature to how we spent the rest of our time. What we might call a hobby now might be seen as a vocation as well as a way to spend some leisure time, enjoy the company of friends and experience joy. Thus, there would be little need for work/life balance. There would be only life!

There is still something else here about balance, though. The way I see it, the need is for balancing roles rather than balancing work with life. This is an idea that is promoted by Stephen Covey in his time management book, First Things First. He suggests that we contemplate our lives in terms of the various roles we play in it, regardless of whether they earn us money. Then, we aim to balance the time spent in each of those roles as a way of ensuring we nurture our physical, mental and spiritual selves. Examples of roles might be: computer programmer, parent, friend, conservation volunteer, son/daughter, brother/sister, tennis player and so on.

To achieve this, we can start by reducing the time we spend in paid employment that does not feed our soul. Whilst this will probably reduce our income in the short term, what it increases is the time available to reassess our roles in life and what we truly value.  This will doubtless throw up other challenges. But unsustainable cycles and patterns of working have to be broken somewhere.