Work-Life Balance or Balancing your Life?

This phrase work-life balance is used to explain the way an individual can and needs to bring a balance between their official work (employed or an entrepreneur) and personal life and thereby regulate the impact on one another. For me, the phrase seemed quite incomprehensible, yet I just could never explain exactly why it was so. When someone asked me that question, my response to it had the answer to the why. I always started my response with the phrase, “My work life and personal life…”. The blog that wrote about this in 2006 is also titled Balancing Work Life and Social Life as opposed to the phrase ‘Work-Life balance’.

Despite this stance, the aha moment for clarity dawned on me when recently I was having a conversation with my Spouse, and he spelled out pretty well what I was probably struggling to clearly state. 

Work is just one part of your life. 

Work is, but one component of our lives, among various other things that constitute our whole life. So how can you have a part of life in a balance with life itself? It logically/realistically can’t. Life is much larger, more like a superset (sometimes I think of it as a universal set) of work. 

With this explanation, for me, “work-life balance” loses its traditional value that work and life itself need to be given equal focus/weightage.

Once this is the perspective, priority, process, and the rest just follow, helping in the long run to practice the calm that's the first step for self-care. While the perception shift sounds easy when explained, really arriving at this mindset takes a lot of effort against generational conditioning and groupthink. 

Here are a few things that can help in reframing our thoughts to develop this healthy outlook. Once we do this, we have a hold on our well-being – mental and physical. 

Define your components of life

Explicitly defining what life means for you and maybe evening writing it down on a piece of paper or drawing a mind map of it. For some, it could just mean predominantly their work, ending up being workaholics and facing the consequences on health that workaholism can lead to. For some others, it could only mean being a part of a socially acceptable marriage institution, ending up losing their self-identity, and seeing them sacrificing their needs as a primary carer of their family.

Let go of Perfectionism

The thought that helps within assisting in this reframing our mindset to remove the focus from work and shift it to the larger image of life is the acceptance that, I am not perfect, nowhere close to being an expert. There's always a scope for us to learn from anyone and anywhere. This provides the grounding needed to accept and work with our failures (even to meet our own expectations from ourselves), in life and work. 

Guilt-free Mindset

Whichever part of the world we are from, human conditioning has a stronghold on self-driven guilt on a lot of things. Understanding the difference between necessary guilt, to ensure not repeating a mistake or a blunder and toxic guilt that cripples us from even functioning normally is a journey each of us needs to travel through self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Honing your Abilities

While the popular belief is that people are born with their abilities, I personally believe that these can be developed by anyone, at any age. An article by Pradeep Sahay on LinkedIn that highlights that the old nature vs nurture absolutist argument is probably ready to be shelved and in its place, a new approach of using context to understand the nature and nurture aspect of talent is a good place to start reading to expand our outlook. There is additional reading within the article that is helpful in adding to our knowledge and learning.

Accepting the Fluidness of Life

My favourite phrase ‘Life throws a curveball when you least expect it’ – repeating this every time in my head during the tough phases of life, helps me tackle them because there is hope that eventually when you practice tacking enough curveballs, the rude shock of the getting sucker-punched by a curveball can one day change to a pleasurable challenge of reeling in a tough situation and growing with the learning from the tackle. This also brings with it the skill of adapting/adopting to change, learning the skills to stay relevant, and growing & changing with the change that is a constant always.

Healthy Routines

When we are on the topic of change, the one thing that can keep us grounded is having healthy routines. Routines help in giving us a soft comfort that helps us deal with the rest of the chaos that is outside our power of control, as it comes. 

Setting boundaries 

Change and routine also bring us to the most important part of healthy regulation – setting healthy boundaries. Working on our conditioning, unconscious biases, understanding ourselves and working on accepting ourselves the way we are before we can start working on what changes we wish to see in ourselves would be a great place to start for setting healthy personal boundaries.

Believing in Relationships

Building relationships (in the workspace and in our personal lives) involves actively engaging in nurturing the relationship and ensuring that the basis of every relationship, trust, remains undeterred. Working on relationships also helps in creating a safety net for us to rely on when we are low on our personal strengths. While the phrase building and believing in a relationship seems simple enough, it is an emotional roller coaster ride and hence requires a lot of work on our personal emotional intelligence.

Social Life

While family and work colleagues are great, they are a given. Having a social life outside these two, building a social circle that includes, friends, causes that are close to our heart, like-minded groups sharing similar thoughts, passion, and interests, needs to be part of our social life for us to gain an enriching life experience.

We are all dispensable (replaceable) in the grand scheme of life, especially with the ‘Change being a constant’ tag line creeping up unannounced. A life well-lived (for me) means, when I am replaced (or dispensed), I have no regrets at all and am content with how I lived my life. 

While these are some of the mindful ways to have a fulfilling life as I see it, most would call these tips to have a great work-life balance. Whatever you would like to call it, these are some of the life hacks that I would stand by to make living life easier and enjoyable, considering that life always has a way to surprise us, when we least expect it. 

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge, #MentalHealthTalks.

Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 2 of 2)

If you would like to read the part 1 the Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2), follow the link. 

“No health without mental health” – Surgeon General David Satcher

Here are a few coping mechanisms I practice for my personal mental wellbeing (most involve a mindset shift from what we have been conditioned, a reframing of sorts)

1. Learn to Pause: We are conditioned to believe that we must always be engaged and contributing something. Doing nothing, is not equivalent to wasting precious time. Sometimes we need that pause of doing nothing to rejuvenate ourselves and our overworked mental and physical system. Even a supercomputer needs to be shutdown to keep it working well for long.
   
   
2. Read Different Genres: I enjoy reading (anything). I love to explore different genres and different authors. I may not read to the extent of quoting the author with the phrase or passage, but now we have the luxury or searching for the same before we share it on the digital platforms. I love to read to explore unexplored territories to widen my thoughts and diversify my thinking pattern.
   
   
3. Create Something From Scratch: I love counted cross stitch and writing. My go-to comforter is one of these two and I am always pulled into it so deeply that the needed distance from whatever is bothering my mental wellbeing is automatically created. This enables me to clearly look into it from afar and then find a way to tackle it to bring back my mental peace. The last year+ saw the conceptualisation of a memoire book on my father-in-law. What started as a digitisation effort of his written work from more than 3-4 decades ago, as it progressed the book had snippets from significant people about him and his positive influence in their lives. The process of conceptualising and shaping such a creation kept me grounded during the pandemic times stuck indoors. The coordination of getting input from people living in different parts of the state and compiling it to a complete book was cathartic. Seeing the book published and released on 31st August 2021 (on his 75th Birth anniversary) in his memory gave a sense of accomplishment.
   
   
   
   
   The whole effort also seemed like a cathartic closure for the family dealing with the grief of his passing (a decade ago). In 2019, I did a similar effort of compiling the devotional songs of my paternal grandmother in a book format to be given as memorabilia for the family on her first death anniversary.

   
   
4. A Good Sleep: Earlier I used to think that sleeping without solving a fight or a problem is not good for the relationship or self. Now I have come to realise that ‘sleep over a problem’ was told by someone who knew what they meant. When you sleep your body and mind are well rested. Sometimes your dreams could be a way of finding innovative, interesting, and simple solutions to the problem that you had before you slept. There have been extensive studies on this. Here are a couple of articles that has scientific data to support this need.
• Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
• FACT or FICTION: Do women need more sleep than men?
  
  
5. Pick your Partner-in-crime’s brain: This could be anyone from your sibling, spouse, cousin, friend, work colleague, parent, teacher, or a counsellor who is a good listener and ideator, who understands inclusivity and knows to compassionately look at things from your point of view and then come up with perspectives that would make us think differently from what we had assumed. I read somewhere a quote on assumption – When you ‘assume’ you make an Ass of U and Me. This stuck with me forever. Now, every single time I move into the zone of assuming that I know what goes in someone else’s mind or what they might be feeling, this quote pops into my head and there ends my assumptions. I find that it is easier to clarify what we are thinking to be true or not by openly paraphrasing it without being judgmental when we articulate our thoughts. Doing so also helps in enriching the said relationship and increases our personal score on the integrity index!
   
   
6. Free yourselves from expectations: Everyone has expectations – we from others and others from us. Yet many of us want and wish to be free of it. This takes conscious effort, but it is worth the effort. When you free yourself from expectations, there are no disappointments. Here is something that can help you see how expectations are formed. When you are able to see that, you will figure out your own way to break free of it.
   
   

   

   My 100 word story first published on Momspresso

   
   
7. Solocation: Try going on a solocation, when possible. It really does wonders to self-care. Sometime in March I decided to go on a solocation, just to get away from the daily churn of things and came back after a relaxed couple of days and much more happier than how I left. My family also seemed to have benefited from my 2 days of absence.
   
   
8. Seek Professional Support: While the above do help, there might be instances where they may not be enough. In such situations, there is always an option to seek professional help through personal/relationship/parenting counselling as the need is and ensure that your (above) efforts also have a backing of the scientific process that would fit your lifestyle, temperament, family & individual needs, and abilities. Make sure that you are seeking the right kind of professional support and not just getting some random advice from friendly neighbour, family member, or well-wisher who might not completely understand all the variables that need to be addressed in a specific manner for you and your loved ones to benefit from the same. 

Were(Are) you a primary caregiver & have similar or other coping mechanisms? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks.

Lockdown Chaos: Disparities for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2)

One year after the first announcement of lockdown in India, I wrote a post on Momspresso on the topic I am not okay as a weekly challenge prompt. While writing that blog was cathartic, the constant changes due to the COVID restrictions, the new variants of the virus, the uncertainty of this pandemic lifestyle comes back to haunt us a lot. In these uncertain times, when schools went online, and work came into my home, I lost my personal space & “Me-time” routines. 

As an EdTech & Life Skills Consultant, I worked from home for the most part of my work engagements, yet there was a routine to it. I would finish my work, when my family was away from home in school and office respectively. In fact, I would also squeeze in some self-care routines daily to keep my cool when the family returned home in the evening. In the last year+ my routines have gone for a toss including the family chores.

The lack of routines, private space, and time for the primary caregiver (home maker) has also brought with it the focus on imbalanced division of labour within the home. While the home is everyone’s responsibility, most of the daily chores such as the upkeep of the house, inventory management & maintenance, bringing edible food to the table, catering to the never-ending snack requests of bored family members who do not understand or realise what goes into getting a quick bite-snack ready-to-consume leaves very little time for the primary caregiver for self-care and personal time. If this primary caregiver is also a part-time or full-time working person, then there is absolutely no time for anything else other than crossing out the to-do list from morning when they are awake till the time their body shuts down in exhaustion in the night. Add to this the fiasco of online school and the emotional toll that it has taken on the child’s psych and development. Not all schools and teachers are even partially trained to handle the nuances of online school along with the socio-emotional parameters that need to be given special care in this modality. 

Even in the so-called progressive homes where we celebrated equal participation, the pandemic showed that it really wasn’t the case. There was still quite a lot of imbalances where the primary care giver is implicitly expected to be the one to do the following:

• Plan & Provide for Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner and the odd snacks: Includes working with available resources inside home when there was strict lockdown, plan for refilling the dwindling supplies in the kitchen stock and be prepared for those uninformed requests of odd hour snacks because you couldn’t order in during the strict lockdown periods. This has a secondary problem of additional work of pots and pans being used, cleaned, and stored appropriately. There were days when domestic support was unavailable, and the family wasn’t even aware that they had to pitch in till either they were told or in some cases the caregiver had an emotional breakdown to bring to the attention of the family that (s)he needed help.
• Teaching Assistant (TA): The unwritten expectation of being the TA even outside the lockdown was there, but the lockdown saw the primary caregiver huff and puff and juggle with the available time at hand to ensure that the child(ren) sat through the online class, did their homework and class works (that were usually done in school and hence was never on the caregiver responsibility plate), projects – specifically group projects follow up on WhatsApp and hangouts, revision before the continuous year-long assessments, and fill in for the lack of understanding that they have due to not being able follow the class due to internet connectivity and clarity on a regular basis. If an educated stay-at-home-parent finds this difficult, then we can only imagine the plight an un(der)educated parent or an educated-working-parent would have been through.
• Routines: They are always there for a very good reason. You know what to expect and hence you can plan for contingencies. This way even the rare case where something that wasn’t anticipated happens, we are able to cope. Pandemic saw to it that all routines went out the door when the entire family started staying indoors. Everyday was a new day, new pattern, and hence new adaptation. Change management usually has a peak (when emotions are at a high), lull (when we start questioning the purpose of the change), and a plateau (when we enjoy the new norm while we prepare ourselves) before the next change that is around the corner comes upon us. Unfortunately, pandemic did not give us this luxury. There were only peak after peak that leads to exhaustion due to emotional overdose. Even those who were emotional intelligence or mindfulness practitioners, the pandemic induced anxiety & uncertainty caught up with them, pushing almost everyone into a collective burn out.
• Emotional Numbness: The loss of job, finances, lifestyle, routines, lives of loved ones and otherwise, was too much that there has been a collective numbing of emotions in dealing with the grief that these loses usually trigger. Added to this was the inability to follow through with the mourning rituals due to the COVID restrictions. In the process of following the SMS protocols, despite the availability of technology to stay connected, the personal touch that is paramount in dealing with grief was missing. The losses also were quite sudden which rendered those affected by it in a state of shock. Without the support system and the rituals of handling grief most moved from shock to numbing of emotions as they did not know what else to do. The grief was either suppressed or repressed and we know what happens when either of the routes are taken without handling grief as it should be.
• Domestic Violence, Child Marriage & Child Labour: In some cases, with the entire family stuck indoors and no reprieve to reach for support there has been an increase in the cases of domestic violence. Loss of income and rise of expenses ended up in many getting their underage children to go to work or to get them married off (mostly girls). 

These are just some of them among many such deviations from what we knew life as usual. 

While I enumerate the problems that contribute to the disruption of mental wellbeing of self and the family, what can we as individuals do to ensure our mental safety and that of our families in that order. You can never pour from an empty cup, which means the first need is to ensure our own mental and physical wellbeing. Will elaborate them in the coping mechanisms I benefitted from, in the second part. 

Were you a primary caregiver & have similar or other experiences? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. Incidentally, this is also my 100^th blog.

You might also enjoy reading

• The Conundrum of the Gendered Glasses
• To Work or not to Work? A Stay-At-Home-Mom's Perspective

Why Solocation can rejuvenate homemakers?

I have been thinking of going on a vacation by myself (solocation) for a while, but it never materialised until recently. The COVID 19 Pandemic lockdown became a catalyst to this thought and the subsequent Work-from-Home (WFH) and School-from-Home scenarios that reduced my rejuvenating “Me-time” drastically (to be read as NIL). 

My definition of me-time isn’t just reading books, creating or doing stuff that I love doing, but really absolute silence, where I can listen to and feel my own breathing, pick & look at my thoughts without judgment, be aware of everything inside and around me, what they now call being aware, mindful or meditation (No, I do not close my eyes for this, I just stay in the moment and relish it). I love staying still and doing nothing. Over the years, doing this as a regular practice has helped me cope with all the amplified chaos, that my status as trailing spouse (with international relocations) has brought for me on a golden platter (this is a topic for some other time).

There is an interesting scene from a recent Tamil movie - ‘Mookuthi Amman’ which I watched on OTT - where the brother asks his family members what their wishes were and the elder sister (who dons the homemaker responsibilities) very humbly requests ‘I need one day vacation from the kitchen’, was something I was able to correlate with, instantly. I am sure many homemakers would have had this thought in their minds sometime or the other in their lifetime! 

I would blame my socially conditioned thought process for not considering solocations early on in my life. If you are wondering what this means, here I list a few:

• I always feared that the family would suffer if I left my home for a while. 
• I thought I must not take off on my own for my personal pleasure, despite being an advocate of self-care myself for many of the people whom I have impacted in my professional avatar as a wellness and parenting coach.
• Worry about so many ‘what-ifs’ plaguing my mind.
• Being a homemaker was my choice, hence the challenges are mine to deal with.
• I am not the only one facing such circumstances. Why am I acting as though it is just me?

I hope you now get the drift. Considering the pandemic situation, I did not want to travel too far from my home either. So, my #solocation plan was to check-in to a hotel with good amnesties, a 10 min drive from my home. 

I packed my backpack on a Friday morning, finished my lunch with my family, took a cab, and checked in to the hotel at 3 p.m. My Hubby man had booked a room with King size bed and oh boy, was I thankful!

Stepping into the room, the concierge told me that a surprise awaited me. I thought it was my husband’s doing with some surprise, but what I saw was really a heart-warming gesture from the hotel staff. On the writing desk lay a beautiful card, with an amazing message welcoming me for a great and safe solocation. They congratulated me for stepping out of my comfort zone by choosing to travel solo and comforted me with the assurance of safety during the duration of my stay. This hotel – Novotel OMR - won me over that instant (though I already was a great fan of their hospitality, having experienced them in other countries).

That gesture was a big step towards easing the doubts that were rearing their ugly head on my decision to go solo. The rest of my stay during the weekend was pure bliss. The benefits I enjoyed during my stay:

Completely Rested: Sleep early and wake up early and refreshed the entire day – my comfort schedule which I had forgotten since motherhood; changed to, sleep late wake up early, and stay exhausted. Oh… The King-sized luxury bed was quite the comfort and I slept like my husband. (I recently read a quote on my friend’s FB wall – I do not want to sleep like my baby, I wish to sleep like my husband. I am sure you get the drift.)

Stomach full without having to cook: Eat filling meals without having to think about what to cook and then actually cooking them! Being weekend, the breakfast buffet at Novotel was filled with choices including South Indian and North Indian choices. I had my fill all three mornings – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Oh! And there was Galette (My French colleagues will relate to this dish) too. I felt so stuffed that I skipped lunch. I can still feel the refreshing taste of the breakfast on my taste buds. Their to-order coffee was perfect. Novotel OMR weekend breakfast menu is one of the best.

Experiencing Hospitality: Amazing staff at the restaurant. Always serving with a smile and every happy to oblige any service I requested. Welcoming me every morning with a cheery ‘Good morning’. Enquiring me about my stay and how I was liking the food. I felt like royalty! 

Productive Work Meetings: Yes, I got some office work done too. I was able to get a lot of my writing assignments completed, did some brainstorming for one of the volunteering initiatives, and was also able to catch-up with my old friends over undisturbed phone calls. All this without distractions or disturbances at my home or the doorbell going off every now and then.

Reading: I did get to read a lot on the digital platform. I had also packed a book ‘Teaching through the Heart’ by Meera Ravi which I have been wanting to read for a while now. I missed my reading-for-hours-without-disturbance mode. These two days I was able to do that as well. 

Silence: I had all the silent me-time I could ask for. Doing all the above, I still got this silence, and it helped me in calming myself and come back home with a fresh perspective and a smiling persona that my entire family noticed the change!

On my return on Monday, I had an extended surprise waiting for me at home. 

Lunch was prepared by my Hubby and ready for me to eat. I did not have to come home and immediately resume duties. I had time till dinner for me to take over.

Last but definitely not the least reason to make solocation a normalised event in every household. I got to hear these words from my spouse’s mouth, ‘Now I know how you make things look easy. Two days when I had to hold fort, there were a lot of things I realised were not as easy as I thought they were’.  For example, seems our son rated his morning health drink prepared by his Dad as ‘okay, but needs improvement’. That made him realise how many zillion times I had prepared the same thing, to meet the needs of every individual at home. ‘Though I only did a fraction of things in comparison to what you do daily, I was exhausted by nightfall, both days. I knew being a homemaker was not easy, but I really got a glimpse of how extremely exhausting and difficult it is and for years you never let any of us feel this side of it. You deserve these breaks more often.’

And I have a champion in my son. He said, ‘Amma needs her rest and downtime. She is overworked and less rested. We will all do our chores and pitch in more regularly.’ I do not have to remind them about their home chores (at least not that frequently). The family is more sensitive to my needs, fluctuating moods, and exhaustion. They are now conscious of my office work and hence are more participative in household tasks more. We have family lunches and dinners more frequently where conversations (all kinds) are helping build healthy connection rituals resulting in a secure attachment. These small changes in our family helped the homemaker in me feel valued and that it is now well acknowledged and appreciated by everyone in the family.

My son and spouse are the organisers, sensitive, and emotional characters while I and my daughter are the logical decisive quick thinking and emotionally stronger individuals in the home. She loves pointing out in every possible situation that our family would probably win the award for the ‘maximum stereotypes broken’ category if there was one anyway and feels so much pride and contentment when she states this. 

What more can I ask for? Along with a relaxed and rejuvenated me, I also have a spouse who appreciates what I do much more than before. I think solocations occasionally are beneficial in more than one aspect. I see more of such solocations in my future! I would urge all homemakers (in fact each one in any capacity) also to go ahead and try it out, at least once, if not for anything else, but their personal wellbeing, as part of a self-care practice. 

If you have already had these in your past, would love to hear of your personal experiences as well and understand what other benefits that this can offer (for self and the family as a whole).

This post is part of #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks with Blogchatter. 

Saying Goodbye to 2019

As parents, there have been times when we the years just whizzed past so fast - some we recollect with fondness while some bring with it a heaviness in the heart. 2019 has been a year with both.

Refitment to Indian Way of Life: When we moved back to India in 2018, settling in a young family (2 children aged 12 & 8) to the Indian way of life without losing the learnings over the years that we picked up from our other travels abroad (UK and France) was a challenge looming in front of us. We have always been adaptive in that way, but the good thing is that as a family, we also retained all that we loved from every culture that we happened to experience during our travel and still retaining the "Indianess" in us. The initial 6 months were very difficult but as 2019 began, the family settled in with each of us finding our comfort zone with our extended families and new-found friends, and neighbours.

Getting Back to Professional World: After resigning from my Technical Writing career (13 yrs back), I managed to stay connected with writing through my blog, volunteering and freelancing projects, wherever we relocated! This move back to India gave me connections with Alumni and friends through whom I have been able to find a part-time position in a start-up and explore the avenues of branding myself as a Consultant Content Developer, Career Counselor & Trainer/Tutor. This is a personal achievement that I am very proud of. Our parenting has been instrumental in bringing forth the instant adaptiveness from my children to this change of mine, my spouse's unwavering confidence in me, and my mother's close presence are a few things I am grateful to have to my advantage!

Quality Time with Family: 2019 saw many from our extended family visiting us at our home. Children got to spend quality time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The interactions that ensued - some were captured on a camera while some remain etched in our memories (a camera of its own kind). They also got to spend a few moments with their great grandmother before she went on her life's last journey.

Personal Fitness: Morning walks that started as an effort to control my obesity and a chance to have meaningful conversations with my spouse. Zumba came as an addition for better cardio training on the insistence of a friend, which surprisingly I have started enjoying. Weight training is a recent addition to muscle strength and toning. A hashtag that started as a fun conversation with my spouse has now become my mantra for fitness - #FitBy50.

Overall the year that went by had some great moments, some personal growth, some personal losses - a typical sine wave - with its crests and troughs. This year, I think, was a perfect example of what life is all about - yin-yang combination - the good in bad, and the bad in good going hand in hand - the transientness of happy and sad, success & failure, gain and loss - a content year in all. Guess I have finally grown up enough to understand this - of course reaching close to the milestone of 40 years of age I am sure, has nothing to do with it (wink).

Wishing you and your Family a Happy 2020. Keeping in mind the WhatsApp message that is making the rounds, do not forget to make it a habit to write the year as a four-digit representation instead of the usual 2 digits (I have been doing this for 2 decades now). 

To Work or not to Work? A Stay-At-Home-Mom's Perspective

If you think this is about me a stay-at-home-mom's (SAHM) dilemma before or after I had kids, you are partially right, but this is not just about that. This question "To work or not to Work" is something that I have asked myself millions of times at various stages in my life, after I completed my basic education (12 + 5 years of college in one of the esteemed universities - probably the only university - that offers integrated dual degrees in India). This is also a question I have been asked by many (family, friends and strangers alike) over the years. This is also a question, I know for a fact that my husband also keep asking himself and has been asked by many others that he has come across in his life so far including our children and me. Now I can see cog wheels turning inside your heads when you are contemplating the various scenarios and instances that this could have happened. So let me start with the most obvious of this scenario that deals with me (because as humans we are always self obsessed and like to talk a lot about what goes on with our lives, especially the imbalances in it and I am no exception) and then move on to the more intriguing aspect which is for a husband, the male (for whom to work is the norm and there can never be any other question especially one) that even considers about not working.

The female/wife/mother/woman angle

A couple of years ago, while I was travelling to my husband's home town, during our India visit with the children (just me and my 2 children), in a train journey, I happened to strike a conversation with a co-passenger, a stranger, who was also travelling to a destination close to mine. She was travelling to her home town to visit her parents after year of her second delivery and was travelling alone with 2 children. So this was a conversation between two recent time mothers (My youngest was couple of years older than her youngest).

She had recently resigned her job after using up her maternity vacation (paid and unpaid), and was doubting herself if she took the right choice. Somehow, she found me safe enough to share her personal information with me (which I might not have done without a little prodding). Guess it must have more to do with the intensity of the self doubting that she was going through rather than my being a safe enough sounding board.

"I just resigned my job as a Team Lead an IT firm. I used to draw a good salary and now I am wondering if I did the right thing by giving up my job. But when I see my children and the fact that I am able to make sure what I put in my daughter's lunch box is something fresh, home cooked and healthy, when she leaves for school in the morning, and the fact that I can attend to beck and call of my younger daughter every time she cries for a comforting hug or has melt down for my complete attention, makes me think it was the right thing to do. When I meet my friends from school and college, I start doubting myself as they have progressed in their career and they also have a family. Some days are so depressing, I do not have peers around me to have intellectual conversations with, I feel there is lack of challenge to my thought process. I feel that I am wasting away my life by choosing to stay at home instead of working and putting to use the education that I was privileged to have. I feel that I am doing injustice to my qualifications." Listening to her made me think how similar she sounded and looked to how I felt when I resigned my job a few years back. She asked me, "Are you working?". I said "I am not". Then, she asked me about my educational qualifications and when I told her that I had an integrated dual-degree from one of the prestigious institutes in India and a PG diploma, she was surprised and her immediate next question was "With a single Bachelors degree, I am doubting myself for not working, with your educational qualifications don't you feel you are wasting it by staying home?"

I contemplated a bit before I answered her. This involved opening up about my personal life (including opinions, state of mind, and choices) to a stranger and I wanted to be absolutely sure if I was ready to. But then, looking at her dilemma, made me think how nice it would have been if I did have someone to talk to every time I went through this kind of self doubt myself. So we continued our conversation. I told her, "The choice to work or to stay at home depends on your personal take on what your priority is. As clichéd as it sounds, that is the truth. You need to have your choices and priorities right. Otherwise it is going to be a very difficult task to stay happy and contended in the long run."

"You make it sound simple.", she said. "Believe it or not, it is that simple, but to arrive at this state of clarity is a long journey which is filled with self doubt and struggles. When we compare ourselves with those friends / colleagues of ours who have decided to continue to pursue their career (what ever their reasons behind it are), then we are doing injustice to ourselves. You cannot compare apples with oranges. It is not a fair comparison. A good option is to list what your needs are and proceed from there. No solution is perfect. There is always scope for improvements and adjustments. Do what is needed to make life easier and happier for yourself and your family."

"Don't you ever feel that you made a mistake by deciding to quit your job?" she asked.

"Yes, almost every instance I feel taken for granted or ignored, I wonder if I took the right decision. Then, I think if I had continued to work, would I have been happier than what I am now? Every time the answer to that question is NO, and immediately my doubts vanish. The reason behind is the fact that I know I would not have given my 100% to the 'paying job' (career) and then come back home to give a 100% to my family. And personally, if I cannot do that, then I cannot be content, in turn affecting my family. So it all drills down to what you really want - a successful career (where you will need at least some dependency from others around you to tackle day-to-day chores), or just concentrate full-time on your family (giving up your professional career, being able to better manage a Home-Maker role hands on)". We continued to converse till the children slept & parted ways at our respective destinations.

Now it is 11 years since I resigned my last job and I did not resign just because I became a mother. I resigned because, I was struggling to balance between a demanding professional life and tiring needs at home. I was just married (a year into marriage when I resigned) and was immediately in-charge of managing a household (about which I had a vague idea but was unprepared when the whole thing was starring at my face). If I could not do justice to the roles that I chose to play without having to depend on others around me for support to even deliver my basic job requirements, then I would not be personally satisfied and happy. So the better option for me was to give up my professional career so that I could give my 100% to my personal career (Home Management)! But from the time I made this decision, I am constantly challenged by many (family and friends alike) that I am wasting my studies by staying at home. How am I wasting my knowledge gained, If I can use what I have studied / learnt to apply them in my day-to-day tasks and make it enriching to everyone whose life I touch including my own family?

When I put down my resignation, my colleagues asked me, "What would you do sitting at home all day? I will go mad if I had to do that!". My answer was, "For now, I am just taking a break from professional life, take a step back, re-assess my stakes and then move forward from there depending on what I decide as my future path. Till then I am going to enjoy a vacation.". But truth be told, the "vacation" never came. When I resigned from job, I tried my level best to keep in touch with family and friends. I thought I had 8 hours of free time (the time I spent in an office when I was working) at hand and could pursue anything that I wanted to including to revive my hobbies. That never happened. At risk of repeating what many have already said, the day of a home maker is filled with tasks that never end. So instead of doing that, let me tell you how my typical day would be. My typical day would start at 6 in the morning and end at 10 p.m. (ideally it should and used to till I had children) I do have free hours during the day when I can basically laze around in front of the TV and watch serials or programmes of my choice. But that comes with the tough choice that I had to make to forego the organised world of profession where my work would be periodically evaluated and accolades and brick bats would follow the normal course, based on the kind of deliverable/output I gave, and follow a path where the word "organised" becomes a case of luxury. Any work I do is taken for "granted", because I am at home and have all the time in the world to do it, and unless I really went all out to make sure that I spell out exactly what I do, and what it translates into when put in monetary, time and effort perspective (difficult to bring it into that perspective but with some effort can be done) contributes a hell a lot of roles and responsibilities clubbed into one complete package, I would never have a peer review or appraisal that will put my household work in the right perspective and give me a sense of achievement from someone else's point of view.

Every time I visit my relatives or friends, they never fail to ask me about what I do now that both my children are in school full time. I used to try to tell them how my day is filled with tasks to ensure that the rest of the family has a peaceful life especially with a travelling husband (his job requirement demands him to), and a young family settled abroad with a single earning member. I had friends remark jovially that somehow I always tend to remain busy despite no employment. There used to be time when that statement hurt me, because I am not "jobless". I just do not have a job that pays money. I do not have a job that has a regular evaluation process set up. I do not have set standard or benchmark to which I can compare myself and readjust or re-position my progress. My job requires me to wear multiple hats that include the roles of a:

• Day Planner - every day I plan to finish 10 odd jobs but at the end of the day, I see that the jobs that I planned to finish have not been started at all while I ended up doing 15 other jobs which were not part of my day's plan. 
• Cook/Chef - try to start making a particular spread for lunch or dinner and then suddenly figure out that during the course of the day, you had planned to get the necessary ingredients for it but never got around to do the shopping because something else came up and this got left out and so mid way you get creative and come up with a new dish of your own and guess what, it becomes a hit, but you do not know how to replicate it again.
• Child Carer - You just dropped off your older one at school, finished shopping and running some errands that might or might not have included a visit to government offices or any such place that required you to patiently wait for an hour in queue for a job that took less that 5 minutes once you reached the counter, and are entering home while the younger one is sleeping in the stroller/buggy peacefully, so you decide to leave the child in the stroller so as not to disturb and try to catch up on the zzzzs that you lost the previous night because your older one was complaining of pain in the ear/nose/eyes/teeth/stomach/back/knee/there between the legs/pinky toes... and you get a call from the school saying that you need to come to school because the older child has had a small accident and though there is nothing to worry, needs to be picked up and taken home so that the rest of the day can be spent at home resting. So you rush back to school in what ever mode of transport necessary with the younger one waking up mid way and yelling all the way back till you reach home and there goes your zzzzzzzzzs.
• Personnel Assistant & Accountant - Irrespective of whether you are educated or uneducated, I think every wife (in the current scenario I should be saying the staying home partner but I would not be sure if I would be stating the facts as I only know what goes on in my home) goes through this. Act as a reminder service for the husband for even keeping in touch with family and friends, to pay bills on time, to ensure the posting of those odd letters/applications that still need to be done by manual post and not through emails, fill out forms online for stuff like passport renewal, visa processing, ordering gifts for the birthday parties that the children might end up attending over the weekends, scan bills that need to submitted for reimbursements, and sometimes even proxy for the husband not being able to get away from work to attend to the extended family's needs.
• Nurse - any day any time to attend to the first aid to reduce pain and discomfort for the family members until the time that the actual doctor's appointment is available (which most of the times happens to be after the pain or discomfort or ailment disappears with the home based remedies that have been tried)
• Tutor & Governess - After school, the children need to practice what they have learnt in school and for families like ours where we are not sure where we are going to settle down, the necessity to keep up with what other parts of the world also do including learning mother tongue or a language that the country that we might possibly move to next has as its primary or secondary language, fill the gaps that the current curriculum might have in comparison with the rest of the education systems...
• Domestic Helper - Includes dish cleaning, window cleaning, spring cleaning, weekly cleaning, moping floors, regular laundry and ironing, small fixes like fixing buttons and tears in the seams in dresses/pants/shirts, fixing DIY shelves and work table that get delivered home in a box, minor fixes in scooters/bicycles, electrical fixtures at home like replacing worn out bulbs, mend minor leaks...

are some that I creatively could name and provide a sample of what that particular role would demand. Over the years, I have learned to condition myself to smile at such questions. I smile not because, I can't answer them, but I do not see a point in answering it as what ever answer I give will never completely convey my experience of my day.

When a sibling/cousin or a working friend or spouse callously says, "You would not understand the stress that the work place politics and expectations have on me", "I am paid to work not to take time off from work", I used to feel like an outsider and subdued. I remember when I used to work, my mentor told me once, "If you want to understand how to effectively play work place politics, then learn to play politics at home. There is never a better place than there to learn how to do it". I did not understand what he meant at that time as it was my first job and I was just fresh out of college living by myself. But now, almost 2 decades after that "gyan" session, after living as a full time home maker, I completely understand what he meant. I can tell you there is no better place to learn the nuances of Organisational Behaviour and master the art of excelling in the game of Organisational Politics than home, where there is an additional twist of emotions and relationships coming into play which is non-existent in a professional environment. If I have to elaborate on it, then I am sure I will end up writing a complete book on this. Suffice it to say, family is nothing less than an organisation and even more complicated than it and the experience, personal growth and sense of achievement, well rounded (read emotionally beaten up) approach and humility that it has given me to have crossed the hurdles that I have with or without help, I doubt I would have had it if I had chosen to lead a professional career. Enough said about myself. Moving on to the other side.

The Male/husband/father angle

When I decided to quit my job, we had just married and a year into marriage and had to make adjustments to ensure that the financial void that my leaving the job would create can be balanced by what ever job, whatever role that my husband took up. We were in a city living in a rented apartment with substantial rental cost. Added to this was we were planning to expand our family and hence had to save up for that as well. Both of us being family centric, we did not want to leave our respective families in the lurch, not that they were financially dependent on us but we wanted to do our share of providing for them financially as well in addition to being available to them physically and emotionally. This being said, he did not even think before he congratulated me on deciding to quit my job. He has never, till date, asked why I decided to quit (I did talk with him before putting down my papers but not for permission, more as informing him of my decision and discuss when and how to execute the decision) without consulting him. For my in-laws it was a happy news as they belonged to the section of people (including some of the text books that till date have the same clichéd role definitions) who thought once married the wife managed the home, while the husband went out to work. This decision taken, we both were not really prepared for what was to hit us after this. The initial days where I was enjoying my new-found free time, I am sure he was going through the turmoil of having to carry the burden of financial stability of the entire family on his shoulders all by himself. But there has never been a single day or single instance when he has complained of having to carry that burden alone.

Instead, every time I talked to him about getting back to work only to help out in easing this burden, his answer to me has always been "I am fine. The home management is in the hands of a capable person who is doing a good job of doing it with just single income. So you do not need to go to work just for the financial aspect of it; but if you do want to work because you think that would give you personal happiness and contentment, then go ahead. Otherwise, we are fine as we are."

To ensure that we lead a comfortable life and not have to compromise on our standard of living, he decided to take up Onsite roles (overseas). A person who is more than happy to go back to his home town and home land at the drop of a hat because he can stay closer to extended family and friends, decided to spread his wings and explore the world purely because it provided him with opportunities to scale heights that he needed to scale to keep up the standard of living for us, provide for his family, as well as, it was an opportunity to give my young family an experience of a life time that many have not had the pleasure of having. We have been lucky to live in 3 countries outside India (US, France and now UK) and enjoy the cultural experience that each country gave us, travel to more places than most in my family have ever travelled in our age and give our children an openness to the concept of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable because of our extensive travel and meeting people with different points of view.

There have been several instances where me and my children included, have blamed my husband, of prioritising work ahead of anything else because he has had to miss birthdays, anniversaries, and marriages in the family as there was probably some meeting or some travel scheduled that he could not miss (even if those events were on weekends). During these times, there were extensive exchange of words between us which have been quite hurtful, but he did what he did because he thought that that was the best option at that time.

Both of us have matured in our thoughts and probably in our level of self worth as well. Now he follows a strict code of not working (official) during weekends and spends all of his time for the family and during these two days, he also manages to give me at least a half day of break from my home maker's role where he handles the kitchen, chores, children, attends to their needs, dons all of my multiple hats, makes time to keep in touch with family and friends. Despite this, he goes through a hell a lot criticism for doing a "woman's job", to which he turns a deaf ear and moves on with a smile that never fades . I would say, in my home, even I manage to get half a day off, but the man of my home never has time away from his work. Right from the time when my oldest was 5 months old and I felt like a milk production unit, my husband never once frowned on me when I used to literally shove our child in his hand the minute he steps through the front door after a tiring day at work (so that I can then peacefully attend to the task of making dinner and clearing the dishes), or to happily be the play partner to her when she decided that she was going be playing during her Indian evening while we were residing in the USA and then next morning leave for work despite not having been able to sleep off the tiredness of the previous day (and night) only to come back in the evening and go through the entire thing once again with the never fading smile.

Do what works for you

We are at a happy state of mind now, with the choices that we have made in our lives. By choosing to stay at home and not work at all, I am available to my children always at home for what ever and when ever they need me. I keep my house in order all on my own with no additional domestic help or help from family. I spend time with my children to help them with their studies and play. And even after all this, I am not remunerated, never go through regular appraisal cycles to evaluate the quality of my work, nor am I acknowledged on a daily basis for the job I do to make life easier for others around me. Equally my husband, after toiling for 5 days at his regular paid job, does not even think twice before he takes up the job to support me on the 2 days of the week, when most would like to kick back and relax.

To do a job when you are paid for it, appreciated for it, remunerated in the form of hike and promotions is easier to do mainly because of the external motivation that the job gives you, but to continue to doing this job of stay-at-home-mom, and to jump in to share equal responsibility from your spouse and even go the extra mile of giving her the much needed break from routine (or the lack of it) after toiling the entire working week in a regular paid job instead of taking the weekend off to recuperate for the next week, after doing it for 11 years now, I can say that, to keep doing this despite all that I mentioned above, requires immense courage and self motivation that can only come if you really like what you have chosen to do. So for all those who are going through this dilemma (life is filled with them - a statement that even my 9-yr old daughter seems to have understood which I consider as my achievement as a mother), think of what you want and then choose the path that would give you exactly what you want. Never compare yourself with anyone else because, each person is unique. You can have help manuals for products, not for people. What works for me might not work for you. So you are the best judge of what will work for you and never allow anyone else to tell you otherwise. It is okay to get opinions from others but do not let others decide for you. It is you and only you who can answer that question of "To Work or Not to Work?" #NoConditionsApply

Balancing work life and social life

I got a fwd from Bharath about a topic on Late Sitting and what the Infosys' chairman and chief mentor Narayana Murthy felt about it. Am just quotting it below:

Infosys' Chairman and Chief Mentor Mr. Narayana Murthy's Speech on Late sitting:

I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put in these hours for years. I don't know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace. Whatever the reason for putting in overtime, working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization.

There are things managers can do to change this for everyone's benefit. Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for potential errors. My colleagues who are in the office long hours frequently make mistakes caused by fatigue. Correcting these mistakes requires their time as well as the time and energy of others. I have seen people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on Monday.

Another problem is that people who are in the office for long hours are not pleasant company. They often complain about other people (who aren't working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry. Other people avoid them. Such behavior poses problems, where work goes much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another.

As Managers, there are things we can do to help people leave the office. First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves. I work with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly lose their meaning when he sends these chiding group e-mails with a time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday.

Second is to encourage people to put some balance in their lives. For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:

1. Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.
2. Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.
3. Go home.
4. Read the comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc.
5. Eat well and sleep well.

This is called recreating. Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2. Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts. They are hard for some of us because that requires personal change. They are possible since we all have the power to choose to do them.

In considering the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my eldest son. When he was a toddler, if people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep no matter how long the visit, and no matter what time of day it was. He would fight off sleep until the visitors left... It was as if he was afraid that he would miss something. Once our visitors' left, he would go to sleep. By this time, however, he was over tired and would scream through half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for his fear of missing out.

Perhaps some people put in such long hours because they don't want to miss anything when they leave the office. The trouble with this is that events will never stop happening. That is life! Things happen 24 hours a day. Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap. Things will happen while you're asleep, but you will have the energy to catch up when you wake.

Hence "LOVE YOUR JOB, BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY" (Because you never know when it stops loving you !!!!)

- Narayana Murthy

Reading this I was reminded of my collegues who put in so many extra hours of work and look so haggered. After the 2 days weekend, they come in so fresh. As the week progresses, they keep putting in so much of extra hours of work and by the time it is Friday, you feel sorry for them. They look as though they are gonna crumble the next minute. And as mentioned in the above speech, some of them crib about their collegues not working that long and other such problems.

Why do we torture ourselves to such long hours? An interesting quote that I came across which may be related to the current post:

"Twenty years down the line you will feel sorry for the things that you did not do than the things that you did. So never postpone a thing for future."

Always ensure that you strike a balance between your personal, official, and social life. This makes your life enjoyable. And probably it is time to realize that extended hours does not increase productivity... Instead it will only reduce productivity as it paves way for increased human error due to fatigue. Ponder!!!!

Also the quote that he gives at the end of his speech is also a point to ponder and a quote that is close to my heart.