One of life’s greatest pleasures is to do what you love. That pleasure is even better when you get paid to do what you love. As an entrepreneur, I work every day to earn a satisfying income doing what I love and doing it with joy. Today, “what I love” consists of writing and teaching. Part of my labor of love is for other people. And part of it is just for me. I write, teach, and share to inspire others and to inspire myself, to enhance your life and to enhance my life. It’s a wonderful arrangement.
Although I continue shaping my work even today (or is it shaping me?), I am deeply satisfied with the opportunities I already have to do what I love. Yes, I’m living a dream that just gets better all the time. Even still, there are some problems with this arrangement… (Imagine that!)
Working for Profit
Since I do what I love, sometimes it’s hard to stop working. Personally, I’m not all that satisfied with the Monday to Friday routine of work and the opposing Saturday to Sunday routine of play. It’s too jarring and doesn’t encourage spontaneous inspiration. One of my current goals is to strike a more satisfying balance between work and play that allows for more flexibility in and between both categories.
Before I go any further, I want to offer some working definitions for these terms…
Work = productive activities that sustain lifestyle
Play = productive or non-productive activities that bring intrinsic pleasure
Typically, we consider these terms as binary or polar opposites. The distinction is common in modern culture where work is more closely associated with making a living and not always enjoyable. In modern society, more income means more resources. It’s hardly surprising that the work most celebrated and admired is often the work with highest financial compensation. It doesn’t matter if you enjoy practicing medicine, law, sales – these coveted roles are simply well known for providing great rewards.
The general idea here is to make more money so you can have more play in your life. Work is a means to an end instead of an end in itself. We’re constantly working harder and looking to climb the next ladder with the sole aim of getting more.
Working for Passion
We spend a great portion of our lives working. With an average of about 50 work weeks in every year and a standard 8-hour day model, that’s around 2000 working hours per year. In a 365-day year, there are only 8760 total hours of life round-the-clock. We spend close to 23% of our lives working. Of course, that excludes retirement (another strange designation). Even still, it’s a huge chunk of time.
But why designate the entire 23% to working alone? It seems a mistake to create a sharp distinction between when we work and when we play. It seems more like a mathematical formula then a humane way of life. Why not fuse the two categories wherever possible?
I became inspired to focus on building my own income streams as an entrepreneur to avoid the trap of working solely for profit. Like many entrepreneurs, I wanted to build a business to make a living *and* do what I love. I knew that most of my adult life would be spent working, and I didn’t want to do something dehumanizing and boring.
Because I work for passion, I don’t ever have any trouble getting something done for my business. Yes, some tasks are more desirable than others (filing taxes isn’t exactly a joy), but even the most mundane entrepreneurial activities can still be satisfying when you’re already in a great mood!
I know all of this sounds just peachy, but there is still a problem: Where do I draw the line between “work” and “play”? There are still many things I love to do that don’t generate any profit. (Remember those definitions from above?) The last thing I want is for my “play” to become infected by my “work.” It’s something akin to the artist who loves to paint until it becomes a job.
I think this “problem” is also apparent in the field of personal development where the metaphor of working on yourself is used so routinely. Sure, working on yourself is important. I think we all thrive on work even when we’re not doing what we love. But we also need pursuits in our lives that don’t fall under this category of work. As the definition above suggests, we need things in our lives that happen spontaneously without any intent to produce for extrinsic value. (If spontaneous and creative production results, that is certainly a bonus but not a requirement.)
My ultimate goal in life is to achieve mastery in the areas of my life that matter most: personal development, meditation & mindfulness, physical fitness, personal relationships, self-awareness, experiential joy, intellectual and emotional understanding, heightened consciousness, etc. But as I follow this life journey, I also want to take time out along the way to simply be. To enjoy the scenery and marvel at the miracle of my life, your life, all life. 
I think there are two answers to this question – two ways to create more balance between work and play:
Follow your passion (1) and make more time for it (2).
The first approach is a kind of personal development answer to a personal development question. It sounds contradictory, but you really do need to have a better sense of who you are to know what you are passionate about.
Once you identify those passion(s), take the second step and invest more time in them. Put them at the center of your life. Infuse your work with some of that passion, but reserve some things for you alone. If you connect all of your passion with work, you will soon find your passion has turned sour.
I believe that by putting these things at the center of your life, you will find greater happiness and meaning popping up around you (even while doing the taxes J). That positive state of mind will inspire more spontaneity and play in your life. But first you have to work at it. Set aside time every day and work to make it a priority. Soon, you’ll find the scheduling and planning unnecessary as your work on passion becomes genuine play.
Essentially, I do think the distinct categories of work and play are useful just as much as dark and light. But the aim here is to open up more places in your life where the distinction falls away and becomes unimportant. Even now, as I complete this post, I’m enjoying a lovely Sunday afternoon on a holiday weekend. Sure, I’m doing the work of writing a post for my readers, but I’m also enjoying the play of creative thought and inspiration.
Tags: work | play | life balance
