Work and Life - is there a balance?

Ever wondered what it feels like to wake up each morning knowing fully well that the day at work would offer no challenges with no work whatsoever. I’ve had this feeling for days, maybe months now as I type away to watch the latest at the polls or the intensity of the tornadoes that ripped off a few cities. Neither of these have any impact on my life and I still do it, clandestinely, with the window size set to a minuscule level against a background full of colorful sql queries at the risk of giving up a perfectly perfect world that allows me to crib about the fact that I got nothing to do but relax.

Its probably got something to do with age. Yes, I work with a bunch of oldies and the youngest of the lot stands tall at 46. One of them is a living, breathing heart-attack whose sole concern in this life is to push himself to the limits and feel proud about the fact that he managed to spend the super-bowl weekend by writing a few bizarre formulae in an excel sheet to better test the world’s best interfaces that he has ever seen. In all modesty, I built those interfaces. And I’m not bragging here, but even with limited exposure to excel I am sure I could have written equally good formulae with enough time set aside for drinking and cheering for the Patriots while simultaneously trying my luck at a hand of black jack. And no, I would never waste even a regular weekend to do it, let alone the super-bowl weekend.

I do admire the zest in this man for working harder each day. Its come at the cost of three daughters and a wife whose threatening calls I overhear each day telling him to change his life-style. He yells back with a tinge of pride saying that he doesn’t have one and right after he shuts that phone off, he dials away at another one of the many conference numbers that stay glued in his brain to discuss work like there is no tomorrow.

The guilt feeling got the better of me earlier but it wasn’t long before I figured that in my world this is the definition of insanity. So I continue typing away to take a closer look at the caucuses in Idaho while I let my old man praise me for all that good work I have been doing.