Image: I captured the sunset disturbed by traffic on my way home.
For many of us, the work week is not Monday to Friday. It is Monday to almost breathing again.
We count down to the weekend as if it is a small rescue boat sent for us across rough water. By Thursday, people are already speaking in the language of survival. By Friday, the mood softens. And by Sunday afternoon, the shadow of Monday begins stretching across the room.
Yesterday, as the weekend glow was subsiding and I clung to what was left of it i thought: That cannot be all there is.
We spend so much of our lives at work that it is worth asking a difficult question. If we spend more waking hours with colleagues than with the people we love, are our colleagues a kind of family? Perhaps not in the warm and sacred sense. But certainly in proximity, in habit, in shared pressure, in witnessing.
I mean, hear me out: They know how we take our tea. They know our meeting voice. They know when we are tired, when we are sharp, when we are snappy, (even our ahem cycles) when we are pretending.
And still, boundaries matter.
Because familiarity is not the same as access. Work can easily spill into evenings, weekends, and the private corners of the self if we let it. So balance, for me, is not something that appears. It is something we must protect.
I often wonder about this.
How do you establish work life balance and boundaries (in your mind and thoughts) in your own life?
And how much do your colleagues really know about you?
