Work vs. Personal Life: Kya Kare Kya Na Kare (What Should I do and What Shouldn’t I?)
Work vs. Personal life: The Debate is Going On
To work long hours (many a times at the cost of your health and relationships) or to have enough time for life outside the work? To have or not to have work-life balance? Is it fair to work 70 hours a week (or even 90 hours as suggested by some persons)? Almost all professionals are grappling with these simple, yet tough, questions. Many people advocate long working hours, whereas several others favor a work-life balance. What should you do and what shouldn’t you do? It’s not so easy to find the answer of this question.
Working Long Hours is Necessary?
Proponents of long working hours claim that if you want to be successful and want to take your department, organization or even the country to the next level, then you have to work really very hard, even if that comes at the cost of your personal life. They are of the view that nothing substantial can be created or achieved without working long hours. A majority of highly successful persons contend that people should work as hard as they can, and that they should not look for any work-life balance. Many even claims that there is no such thing as work-life balance. For instance, Elon Musk, CEO of Telsa and SpaceX, suggests that to become successful people should work at least hundred hours per week. He said that if you want to be more successful than others then you should work twice hard than other persons.
N.R. Narayana Murthy, famous Indian billionaire and businessman, is of the view that people should work for at least seventy hours per week. Mr. Murthy’s statement regarding working seventy hours per week created a lot of controversy in India. However, many people supported Mr. Murthy and advocated that for a developing country, like India, it is necessary that people work very hard and they should not think about having any work-life balance. They are of the view that if you want to make India a developed nation then you should work very hard for that.
Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, spoke in support of Mr. Murthy’s views. Nilesh Shah, CEO of Kotak AMC, said that for India to accelerate its growth, one generation should adopt the work ethic seen in countries like Korea, Japan, and China, where people consistently work 12-hour days. In a recent statement, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal voiced his support for long working hours. Aggarwal, in a podcast appearance, emphasized his belief that such intensive work hours are essential for fostering national economic growth. Kunal Shah, the founder of fintech firm CRED, believes that no big achievement can come from “work-life balance” and that India has imbibed the Western concepts of a ‘chill life’ before becoming a developed nation.
Several other prominent persons have advocated long working hours. They claim that if someone wants to create or achieve something substantial in his or her life, he or she should not shy from working long hours. It is true that you cannot become highly successful without working long hours. However, many people are of the view that people should have a proper work-life balance.
There is Life Beyond Work!
A lot of people, especially a majority of gen Z and millennials, complain about working long hours. They are of the view that we have only one life and that we should not spend most of our time working or in offices. These people argue that we are not born just to work for long hours. They contend that there is life beyond work. These people think that one should give high priority to his or her health and well-being and relationships rather than just working long hours. The sudden and tragic death of a 26-year-old Ernst & Young (EY) employee, Anna Sebastian Perayil, has further sparked a fierce debate about overwork in the corporate world.
A large number of people advocate having work-life balance. For instance, Wipro Ltd’s Executive Chairman Rishad Premji, at a fireside chat on the first day of the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024, highlighted the importance of work-life balance. He stated that “Work-life balance is incredibly important. I learned this very early on in my early days before COVID-19, which is work life is something that you have to define for yourself; organizations are never going to work at it for you. So, you have to define what it means and draw boundaries.”
There are many people who declined offers for high paying, and highly demanding, jobs because they wanted to have more time for their personal life. For example, a student (though there are many cases like that) from a premier business school declined a job offer from a reputed company simply because the company expected him/her to work for 10 to 12 hours, six days a week. This student, being a fresher and in the year when job market was badly hit, declined the job offer because he/she was very much concerned about his/her health and well-being. Similarly, there are many cases where people either left or said no to high paying jobs as for them their personal health and well-being was more important than professional growth.
What about You?
A majority of the people don’t have clarity about what they actually want in their life. Many people, especially gen Z and millennials, often have contrary expectations. They want to earn a lot of money, want to become famous, want to live a luxurious life, want to frequently go on vacations etc. However, they also want to have work-life balance. They are not willing to work long hours to fulfill their desires. They want everything instantly.
You need to understand that life is all about tradeoffs. Quite often, we don’t get what all we want. If you are a very lucky person, you can get everything you want, which is very rare. So, you have to be very clear about what you actually want. If you want to earn a lot of money, then you have to work long hours. Somebody rightly said that if you want to buy anything without being worried about the price, then you need to work without looking at the clock. But if you want to have work-life balance, then you need to learn to be happy with whatever you get by being in a 9 to 5 job. Everything comes with a price.
The most important question you need to ask to yourself is: Do I have clarity about what I really want in my life? You need to find ‘What You Really Want’ and then live your life on your conditions, not based on what others want you to do – whether it is working long hours or having work-life balance.
It’s Your Life: You Decide It for Yourself
The questions before you are: Should I work long hours or should I give higher priority to my personal life? It’s your life. You decide it. You decide whether you would like to work long hours or you would like to have work-life balance. Given below are certain tips that can help you in this direction:
Find out ‘what you really want?’: Do you want to be highly successful? Do you want to earn a lot of money? Do you want to live a luxurious life? Or do you want to have enough time for yourself and for your closed ones? No other person can answer these questions on your behalf. So, first you have to figure out what is that you ‘really want’ in your life. Most of the people don’t have clarity about what they ‘really want’ in their life. Whatever it is – whether it is professional success or work-life balance or both – that you really want, try to figure it out.
Working hard is important: Please remember that you can achieve most of the things that you desire only by working hard. Whatever it is – whether it is earning a lot of money, successful career, a big house, luxury car, vacations in a foreign country etc., you can achieve only by working hard, unless you have very rich and kind parents who are willing to give you whatever you want, which is very rare. So, working hard for long hours is crucial as it is only by working hard you can achieve what all you want.
So is the life beyond work: Though working long hours is important, so is the life beyond work. One major regret a lot of people have towards the end of their life is that they have not given enough time to their family members and closed ones when they were young. Earning a lot of money but not having time to enjoy that you can get from that money is of no value. Likewise, having a lot of money but not having people with whom you can spend some quality time is of little value. So, you need to understand that life beyond work i.e., personal life is equally important.
Don’t live to fulfill the expectations of others: This is your life. You should live it the way you think is right. You should not live your life just to fulfil the expectations of other persons as no one living his or her life to fulfill your expectations. The more you fulfill others’ expectations, the more they expect from you. And in the end, no matter how much you sacrifice or what you do to fulfill others expectations, there always will be complain that you have not done enough for them. So, don’t waste your life to fulfill others’ expectations. Do what you think is right. Have clarity about what you want in your life.
Your happiness is your responsibility:All people want to be happy, but most of them don’t want to take responsibility, and act, for their happiness. Whether you get happiness from working long hours or vacationing or spending quality time with your closed ones, it is you who need to figure out what makes you happy. No matter what other persons are suggesting – to work 80 hours a week or to have work-life balance – you decide it for yourself because your happiness is your responsibility.
