Work, Love, and Play - December 17, 2024

Dec 16, 2024

3 min read

“The richest and fullest lives attempt to achieve an inner balance between three realms: work, love, and play.” - Erik Erikson

I recently listened to the November 25, 2024 episode of the Hello Monday podcast. In this episode, they interviewed author and nonprofit leader Brigid Schulte, who wrote the books Overwhelmed and Over Work. Her nonprofit is called the Better Life Lab, which is on a mission to advance work-family justice, gender equality, care, and well-being, particularly for those most disadvantaged by the status quo.

In the interview, Brigid spoke about how in the United States, we rely on economic indicators to measure success. We’re obsessed with the stock market, job numbers, unemployment rates, etc. But only half of Americans have money in the stock market, and more than that, work is only one arena of life… and it often squeezes out the time for the other two (love and play).

Here in the U.S., we don’t measure the huge economic cost of health issues, pollution, and burnout, which are all unsustainable and harmful to our health and by extension the economy.

In other countries like Iceland, Scotland, and Japan, there’s a movement to look beyond economic-related data to grasp an understanding of overall health. The “Wellbeing Economy Movement” puts quality of life at the center and attempts to measure things like childhood poverty, whether people feel safe in their neighborhoods, whether they have access to parks, the quality of available jobs, and more.

Whatever You Measure Gets Rewarded

On the podcast, Brigid said something that stuck with me: “The U.S. has a love affair with work.” It is so true. Even as I sit in a coffee shop and work on this blog post, I look around and notice that every single person is working on a laptop. No one is interacting.

It got me thinking about my own life, and how fulfilled I am in each category of work, love, and play. I’m off the charts in the work category, but I have room for growth in the areas of love and play.

Whatever you measure gets rewarded. If our country continues to measure only economic factors, that’s what will get rewarded. So as 2024 comes to a close, think about what you want to measure in your own life. How do you measure work, love, and play?

On a scale of 1-10, how do you rank each of these areas of your life? Consider the time spent on each, level of fulfillment, level of effort, outcomes, and the relative weight or level of importance you place on each area. Here are some questions to get you started:

What are the benefits of focusing more attention on [FILL IN THE BLANK]? Ask yourself this question inserting each of the areas in the blank.
What is the cost of focusing more of your attention on [FILL IN THE BLANK]?
Is there a gap between what you really want and where you are currently putting your time and effort? How does that gap feel to you? What’s possible when you start to fill in that gap? What’s the consequence of not filling that gap?
What is one small, achievable step you will commit to as a result of your reflection?

When I do this exercise for myself, I immediately recognize that there’s a disconnect in the area of play. I place a high importance on play, but I’m not putting in the time and the effort to truly feel satisfied in this area. In 2025, there’s an opportunity to take an action step. (I’ve taken several in the past few weeks and I already feel lighter!)

Take One Small Step

Where do you see an opportunity to take an action step for yourself in 2025?

Bridging the gap in any area of your life doesn’t have to be a big, difficult thing. It can be as simple as taking one small step each day to create more fun, fulfillment and love in your world. Small choices and adjustments on a daily basis add up to a significant impact on your overall quality of life and level of fulfillment.