There was a particular place I worked briefly for one of my short-term vacation jobs when I was in school. I discovered that I would finish from work and still take the remaining duty home and would be awake almost all through the night to continue from where I stopped. I mean, it was like my entire being revolved around it, or as if my life depended on it. It was not long and it started telling on me. I lost so much touch with reality and it even affected my wellbeing. It was at that time that one of my friends advised me that I should find a balance between work and my personal life. In his words he said "work does not finish, if you sacrifice your rest for it, it will still not finish, so know how to manage your life."
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There are sometimes that if you work more than your body can endure or if you exceed your limits, diminishing return may set in and it will become counterproductive. No wonder is has been said that "working and working without playing will make someone dull." It is unbecoming that a lot of people do not know where to draw the line of equilibrium between their work and their other life. The truth is that anyone you sacrifice for each other will come at an expense and will attract consequences. So the only way out is to have a balance between both.
In order to strike a balance between your work and your private life, you need to know how to effectively allocate time for each. I once heard about the story of a particular man who was a journalist, but much more than that, he allowed journalism to eat deep into him that everything for him revolves around journalism. Each time he is not in the office working, he will be going through his materials. It got to a point when he began to lose touch of reality and everyone, including his family members, complained about his non-involvement in anything relating to them.
Even when he decides to attend a social event, like a birthday party, wedding, etc, he would take some materials that he will be reading throughout and everything that is done would not concern him. A point came when he wanted to celebrate his golden jubilee and then called family and friends to come and celebrate with him. Well, they honoured the invitation but everyone came with a newspaper and were all reading inside the event. He felt so disappointed and sad that his friends and family were not involved in celebrating with him but were all reading newspapers. It was then that he realised that it has been his lifestyle all these while. He understood that he had sacrificed his life for his work and it has affected everything about him. Well, it was never late to change.
It is true that you should be ambitious and then pursue after your goal and of course, there is a need to make money, but you have to also understand that there are other things that matter to life more than money. Of course, there are very many things that money cannot buy and you should be careful not to sacrifice that. For example, money cannot substitute a good rest, money cannot buy a perfect health, neither can money buy a true family and friends. So know how to fit all these into your list of priorities without sacrificing one for another.
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Story was told of a man that hustled almost all his life to amass a great material possession. Everything his mind was focused on was to make money without even taking care of his own health or even getting along with his family members because he saw them as distractions. Well, it is true that he got the money that he wanted, but he lost so many things. His health failed him and right on the hospital bed, very lonely, without having anyone by his side, he looked at his great possessions and his last words were "shame on all these vanities." He discovered that he had traded the indispensable things of life for the material things, but it was already late. This is the reason why you have to always balance up every aspect of your life; work and personal life alike, so as to make the most out of life.
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