More Thoughts on Work Life Balance

In an earlier post last week, I talked about suffering from the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). A colleague of mine, The Doyen of Intellipedia – the US Intelligence Community’s classified wiki, Don Burke mentioned to me that he had read my blog, but it wasn’t FOMO he was suffering from, it was HOLI: The hatred of losing information.

I have to agree with him that HOLI is a subset of FOMO. While the fear of missing out is more encompassing to to what’s going on at work, on the television, the news, on twitter, out at a social meetup, it is the hatred of losing information is a big part of that. The knowledge gained when we participate on a collaborative site, watch the news, tweet on twitter, or meet in person is astounding.

The Doyen let me know he hates to see information disappear, information lost when there was an opportunity for it to be captured. I agree. That’s the very thing that Intellipedia is doing for the Intelligence community. The knowledge of government, contractors, and other qualified users dispersed around the world being shared on a wiki that anyone can contribute.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in wiki-markup and esoteric solutions for me. Many a night I enjoy working late as there is time for me to think and play with code. (I am sure many other code-geeks out there know what I am talking about). To me it is fun, fun to see a solution come to life that can effect massive change. Sometimes just 4 lines of code can make a big impact. Those are the time I really smile and get uber-geeky about my work. But then there are times the solution just doesn’t come, so I go to Starbucks or just have to call it a night and come back the next day or next week to it. We can’t expect to know the answer if we get too in the weeds.

Another colleague of mine who I was chatting with today online was commiserating with me about all the projects we juggle and body aches we suffer as we get older. His quote was “Our passions can easily be interpreted as Obsessions“. Even not having a significant other in my life, I know my family and friends can see this about me. My best friend asked me days in advance to go to karaoke last week, because he knew if I didn’t put it on my Google Calendar, then I would just stay in the office and work until I got hungry enough to come home.

Family matters – As you might have read from my tweets and my blog, I have been getting more involved with the church. Which connects me more with family. I feel good when I participate in church functions because my family has been with the church since before I was born and my pastor knows me not only by name, but what I do for a living and what I want to do with my career and life. I was even the first to volunteer for the Chili Cookoff we had this past Saturday and I did come in Second Place. (Dare I share my winning recipe with you all — nooooo like my votes, it will stay a secret).

Going to church and my mother coming down on the weekends gives me time to spend with my ailing grandmother and youngest brother. She’s been suffering from extremely low blood pressure among her other symptoms of her condition. She used to be able to outlift me when we would go grocery shopping. She’d grab the 50lb bag of dogfood because I have a bad back. Now its a good day when she can leave the house. Spending time with her I can see is good medicine, it lifts her spirits. Now that I could never do from my office.

My youngest brother and I have an age difference of 14yrs so much of his life growing up, I was not there. This is something I am working with him on as he has Aspergers and I learn his idiosyncracies. He doesn’t like chili or spaghetti, but he loves to cook and grill. He’s 18 and just graduated from High School, so he spent time living with me this fall and now he comes down on weekends. He is a big help around the house and I have been teaching him how to drive. I am proud to say he just did his first round-trip from Pennsylvania and back this weekend. He beat that new game on XBOX “Deadspace” in less than a day.

He’s not with me now in the house because I haven’t been able to spend much time at home as I juggle all my work responsibilities. I sat him down and told him he can come stay with me again in the future, but right now I can’t do much for him to help him get a job or education when I am not at home to help. He is scheduled to get his license soon and that should help out tremendously. Maybe then I could have a driver? I keep saying I need a personal assistant.

Anyways, back on point to this work-life balance, I know we all are trying to find it in our lives and what might work for others, does not work for all. With the openness of the web and new tools for collaboration and communication coming out every day it seems, we can’t know or share all the information. We will miss out and we will lose information. But now, we don’t have to be the only one who knows, goes, and shares. We can work together.

I hope reading my experiences let’s you know, we can’t be expected to do it all at 100%. I mean, even Barack Obama doesn’t do the dishes and Michelle Obama never slept at his DC townhome while he was a Senator. But they have identified and verbalized with each other what their priorities in life will be once they move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama is going to work on the Economy & hunt down Al-Qaida and Michelle is going to work on being Mom-in-Chief for the first year. (You can thank 60 Minutes for this knowledge tidbit)

My final thoughts are that time spending with loved ones is time always well spent. I think we should take a moment to remember that as the holidays come around.Be thankful for your health, your loved ones and for the passion that drives you.

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