Work Life Balance

Question: How does one balance work and life and especially family and children?

Sadhguru: If your work is not life, I don’t see why you should do it. Your work also is life. Would your life happen if there was no work? – don’t think of only the economic aspects. So work is very much life. Do not ever make this demarcation that there is something called as work and life. There is life and life. Different aspects of life need to be dealt with.

One of the important things that people should do is – I know people are trying to keep it away but I would say that’s a mistake – if family conversations also revolved around various things that you are doing as a part of work, it builds a completely different level of trust and you do not know what insights may come from people who are outside observers to your business and activity, who are trusted people and not some other commentator. People you trust and people who love you and who want you to succeed, their input may be extremely valuable. It may be your wife, it may be your five-year-old child, you don’t know.

So I think there should be no such demarcation. Why can’t work conversations be very interesting if you are creating something? Family could get involved in it and when you are at home, though you may not be actually working hands on, you could be still thinking and evolving things for tomorrow or for the future. I think it is very wrong for people to work for five days and live for two days in a week. It is a horrible way to live. You must live all the seven days.