Working to support your life vs. living to support your work

In his book, On Writing, Stephen King wrote: “… put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room.  Life isn’t a support-system for art.  It’s the other way around”.

Sometimes I feel the same way about work, whether I’m doing something artistic or not.

But before we explore “working to live” versus “living to work”, it’s important to define both ‘work’ and ‘life’.

For the purposes of this article, when I talk about work, I’m talking about the thing you do that allows you to make money – whether you love it or not.  Life, on the other hand, are the other activities you do that don’t necessarily make any/much money.

It’s possible that you spend your time doing things that seem like they belong to both categories since dichotomies aren’t as simple as we make them out to be.  For example, I love working on fiction even if it doesn’t usually make me money, but when I get paid for a fictional piece, is that work?  If something isn’t clear cut, don’t force yourself to categorize it.  We’re only discussing the balance between the things we regularly do to ensure financial survival, and the other not-so-profitable things we need to do with our time such as hobbies, time with family, or taking care of your health.  Face it – even if you love your work as much as I love mine, there are other things in life that you have to pay attention to.

So how do we pay attention to them?

“Working to live”

This phrase means that your work is just a factor in your life.  It is not the only thing that defines you, and you spend (or want to spend) your time on other things as well.  Your main reasons for working may include one or more of the following:

• To earn money from your work so you can survive
• To feel a sense of fulfillment because of the work you do
• To feel happier in life because you’re working on your passion

Symptoms of this lifestyle:

• When office hours are over, you generally put work out of your mind and don’t allow your colleagues to contact you about something work-related when you’re at home.
• You love your work, and if you never needed money again for the rest of your life, you’d do your work for free.
• Yo make time for hobbies, passion projects, and your other priorities in life.

“Living to work”

Living to work means that you prioritize your work so much over other things in your life.  This could be rephrased as living for work.  When you live to work, your main reasons to work can be one of the following:

• To do all it takes to get higher up on the corporate ladder – just because it’s there.
• To make a lot of money, and prioritize that goal over other things.
• To spend most of your time working because what else are you going to do?

Symptoms of the “living to work” lifestyle:

• You schedule your life and other activities based on your work schedule
• You would pick your Blackberry over your spouse or family (I’m surprised that 35% of people surveyed said they would do this).
• You neglect your health because you’re too focused on working.

Making the decision, finding the balance

A better work/life balance was the driving force behind my 9-hour workweek experiment. It’s true that I love my work, but there are other aspects of my life that I want to explore.  I couldn’t do that if I was working for almost all of my waking hours.  I wanted to make more decisions that allowed me to lean more towards the “work to live” group.

Working to live versus living to work is not a decision you make once and expect that it will be carried out consistently from the moment you’ve decided.  It is something you decide everyday, perhaps several times, and every situation you face each time will be different.

In what situations do you find yourself working to live?  When do you find yourself living to work?

Photo Credit: Image from Tim Meijer  from stock.xchng