Create balance, stop looking for it

My journey with the infamously elusive "work life balance"

“getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself. To let go of the one version of the story you’ve been telling yourself so that you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.” - Lori Gottleib in her Ted Talk

Every year I write down in my yearly intentions that I want to find more balance. Balance between work and life, between work and play, between health and enjoying foods that I love. At the end of every year, I feel the same dissatisfaction with the "balance" that I (didn't) achieve. Is it because I'm not trying hard enough? Am I undisciplined? I've even started to question whether "balance" is really what I'm looking for.

Where exactly is this invisible line that I'm trying to straddle? How do my dreams and ambitions fit into the picture? Is it even possible to "balance" work and life when you have lofty goals you're trying to achieve?

I spent the majority of my twenties searching for this arbitrary line that I'm supposed to be straddling. Terms like "work-life balance" and "work-life harmony" would come up in my searches again and again, along with the same tips shared in every article: Draw boundaries, learn to log off at the end of your work day, keep a separate space in your home just for work. Although I agree that these tips are great first steps toward having a healthier work-life balance, that's also where they stop being helpful.

I have to confess that I developed workaholic tendencies quite young. It started more as a restlessness—always feeling like I needed to be doing something. Whether that's engaging in an activity, seeing friends, reading, or writing. But as I started my career, both in tech and in content, tasks started building up and I was overjoyed that I always had something to do. Even now I find it hard to do nothing. There's a deeply rooted anxiety that creeps in as soon as I finish one thing, pushing me onto the next with not a breath in between.

After a few years of therapy, I started seeing patterns in the topics that would arise. I realized that this feeling stems from feeling like I'm not enough. I look back at some of the cultural mindsets I was raised around and see with more clarity. My parents did the best they could with what they had, but so much of what I was taught as a child was to appease other people, put others first, and shove down any emotions I may be feeling. The people-pleasing tendencies along with the feelings of not being enough have grown over the years to encompass the feeling that I'm not doing enough.

Besides culture, there are a few other sources this grew from: having immigrant parents who really struggled with their careers in North America; always being told that finding a job and making money was the most important thing; taking over the role of eldest daughter when my older half-sister left home at 17 (meaning I was 5); becoming the sounding board and emotional punching bag in my parents' divorce. I'm incredibly thankful for all that my parents have done to help me grow up, but the environment in which that happened didn't exactly scream "safe and secure." I never really learned to just stop and take a breath.

As I walk toward this next decade of my life, my feelings toward life have changed a lot. I've started to understand that "busyness" does not make a business. That overworking is actually a flaw rather than something to be proud of. That it's okay to have days where you don't do anything at all—"Reit-off days" as Ali Abdaal calls them.

These lessons did not come easily. As with most things in my life, I chose to learn them the hard way: through breakdowns and panic attacks; through getting seriously ill at the end of each year when I finally come up for air; through my skin showing every moment of stress and anxiety I felt throughout the year via adult acne. For the first time in 30 years, a question bubbled up in my mind: "When will I learn?"

When will I finally learn to be balanced?