Do We Give Our Loved Ones Our Best Selves?

A couple of weeks back, I took  time off work because I was feeling ill. It was the longest I’ve been home since my maternity leave. It was particularly striking because I was alone: my husband went to work and my son to daycare. So, like any recently bedridden person would do, I got out of bed and took a walk.

Girl, I found a whole tap with running water outside my house that I’d never noticed before! I saw my neighbourhood for the first time clearly, noticed who had a nice garden, who was home during the day, who was in the park where I stopped to catch my breath and who was renovating. I discovered a neighbourhood blacksmith, stopped to say hello and chatted with a few neighbours better.  It gave me a certain fullness of heart and I felt slightly better for taking that walk.

 As your typical working mom, I am normally off to work early, back in the evening with a brain sapped of all the energy I put into delivering my best and giving value for what I earn. What is left of me at the end of the day is ragged and sometimes irritable. I am barely able to have a decent conversation and much less intentionally parent my non-verbal toddler. I realised that I, like many working parents, save my best self for work and bring my worst self to the place and people I love the most. Yay!

So why do we give the best of our waking hours to the wrong pursuit? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a worthy pursuit to work, achieve your career goals, and earn some good money while doing it. But if we sit and calculate how many hours we spend in our homes, will we find that perhaps we are missing out on the things that really matter in the big picture of our lives?

Think about the thought and consideration that go into making our spaces our homes; the buying, renting, decorating, perfecting, sacrificing and even arguing over paint colour and marble work tops. And after all that work, are we even ever in that space?

Well, you have annual leave, you say,that’s time away from work. True. But do you spend it at home with the people you love, surrounded by the things you cherish enough to bring into your home? Do you even take your annual leave? My dad worked decades without taking his, I am sure he isn’t the only one guilty of this.

We take our annual leave and we still spend it being busy on family vacations (which is more work depending on how dependent your family is on you), going to events, or even working. This time, we’re on our phones in fancy hotels doing the same thing we do in our stale-smelling office WITH a massive chunk of our savings poured in and sprinkled with the delusion of being indispensable. 

They can’t do anything without me in that office,you say. Have you tried dying yet? See how much won’t get done then.

So what is my point?

For starters, it would help us to be mindful of how we spend our time. If spending time in your home isn’t a priority for you, by all means ignore this. However if like me, you spend a lot of your income and creativity on your home, and it is an extension of yourself, then we need to make time to live in it.

Let’s actually live in the common living areas and not just maintain them as reception areas for visitors. When working from home, let’s create designated working areas so that work doesn’t follow us from room to room without boundaries.

Let’s learn to leave work at work. I personally leave my work bag by the door and pick it up on my way out the next morning, but do what works for you.

It’s okay to put your phone on silent. Don’t be afraid to let your boss know you can’t be reached outside working hours. You should be paid overtime otherwise. They may have a fit but you don’t have to give in to an unhealthy work culture. If you are smashing goals while at work, that is enough.

What is important to you? Let your waking most productive hours reflect that.