Balancing Work and Life

Should your work ever become your life? The easy answer seems to me to be no. But what if your work is ministry… or art? Can you really fulfill your potential as a minister or an artist if you treat it like an ordinary job?

I suspect I have sought jobs most of my life that do not completely consume me, my thoughts, or my time. Granted, when I worked as a CPA, there were a few months each year when audits and tax returns absorbed most of my time. Later, as a professor, there were times when a difficult lecture or a troubled student consumed my thoughts after I got home.

Now, as a writer, ideas come to me at unexpected moments. I find that if I fail to commit them to paper (or computer) very soon, they are likely to elude me later. Nonetheless, I’m usually able to put my writing from my mind while I interact with family and friends, while I’m eating or traveling, while I’m living my life.

There are exceptions, of course. When I’m relaxing in a boat zipping across smooth waters or bouncing across waves on a choppy day, my mind drifts to characters and plots from time to time. Still, these moments are not the norm for me.

I think of my family and their choices. My husband retired from his veterinary practice around the age of fifty, in part because of back and shoulder issues but also because he found it so difficult to relax and put work matters aside. Often he was on call, and calls came in at the most inopportune times.

One of his veterinary partners, whose son played quarterback for his high school team, told my husband, “I’ve never been able to watch an entire football game of my son’s without interruption.”

When my husband, Norm, was on vacation, he’d grumble, “Everything will be twice as hectic when I get back to work.”

When he told his decision to retire early to his managing partner, the man said, “You’ll be back. Mark my words.”

The partner was wrong. When people ask if he misses it, Norm says, “I’ve never looked back.” I cannot say the same about my retirement, but I can say, “I rarely look back.”

My daughter gave up a profitable career as a commercial real estate appraiser to focus on her family. Later, she spent a lot of time writing lesson plans and devotionals for Sunday School programs. Eventually she said no to those as well.

“Maybe, when the kids are out of school, I’ll go back to it,” she says, “or maybe I’ll look into graduate programs in theology.”

Yesterday, she told me, “I’m happy. We’re happy with our choices.”

Life offers so many challenges and wonders beyond the workplace. Because these find their way into my writing on occasion, I wonder if I’d be a better writer if I allowed them to consume me more completely.

I guess I’ll never know. I guess I don’t want to know. Work hard, play hard…this has always been my way. I do not look forward to the day when I’m unable to do either.

I wonder if men struggle with their work-life balance more than women. In Song of Sugar Sands, Acadia thinks her husband may be focusing too much time on his job even though his job is to minister to his church. Although it's the second book in my Sugar Sands series, it's actually set earlier than Joy After Noon.

Today I received images of the cover for my new novel, coming soon (tentatively fall of 2026), Girl From Bell City Bottom.

https://www.amazon.com/Song-Sugar-Sands-Book-ebook/dp/B07WPFJMX2