Ah yes, the mythical unicorn of modern adulthood: work-life balance. That cute little phrase HR departments whisper like a bedtime story while quietly sending you emails at 11:47 p.m. on a Sunday. It’s the professional equivalent of telling a single mom to “just take a bubble bath” as if lavender-scented suds will erase her third job, expired insurance, and child screaming in iPad-induced rage.
The phrase is particularly insulting when your job is your life. I don’t mean in the “live your passion!” Pinterest-meme way. I mean in the “if I stop moving, this building catches on fire and three lawsuits manifest” way. People say “set boundaries,” and I say, “Set boundaries where? In the group chat where my boss sends gifs of burning dumpsters at 2 a.m. with ‘LOL we’re behind on Q3 goals’?”
Work-life balance implies there are two separate things happening. Two cleanly divided zones: the fluorescent-light chaos of labor, and the ambient-light bliss of me time. But for a lot of us, it’s just one long, undifferentiated blob of meetings, microwave meals, mild anxiety, and muting ourselves while screaming into throw pillows. It’s less of a scale and more of a melting clock from a Salvador Dalí painting, ticking away what little soul we have left between performance reviews.
They tell you to take breaks. So you step outside for five minutes, inhale the smell of someone else’s vape pen and existential dread, and go back inside to 47 new emails titled “Quick question!”—each one less quick and more legally actionable than the last.
Let’s be honest: some jobs are just lifestyles with paychecks. You don’t “leave” work. You don’t “clock out.” You marinate in it. It follows you home like a cursed doll in a horror movie, sitting in your living room corner whispering, “Hey, did you update that spreadsheet?” It lives in your phone, your dreams, your spine. You wake up thinking about tomorrow’s deliverables and fall asleep wondering if that typo in the team memo is why Karen from legal hasn’t made eye contact in two weeks.
There’s this fantasy that if we just worked harder at relaxing, we could achieve balance. That if we downloaded the right meditation app, bought the correct $34 candle, or attended a corporate-sponsored yoga class on the roof of the parking garage, we’d suddenly find peace. Spoiler: you will not find peace. You will find Gary from finance trying to touch his toes and a seagull attacking the snack tray.
And don’t get me started on “vacation.” For the chronically work-entangled, vacation is just work in a better outfit. You’ll pack your laptop, say “I’m just bringing it in case,” and spend the trip responding to Slack messages from a pool chair while your margarita gets warm and your resentment turns to steam. True story: I once got a Teams notification during a throat biopsy. The surgeon paused to let me approve an invoice. I said yes with a scalpel in my neck. That’s not work-life balance. That’s a hostage situation.
People love to say, “You have to make time for yourself.” Sure, Debra. I’ll just go ahead and invent a 25th hour on the calendar, right after “cry in the car” and before “stare at wall while eating cereal from measuring cup.” If I schedule “me time,” it will get canceled by “emergency fire drill,” which is code for “Susan forgot how email works again.”
The worst part is the gaslighting. Corporate newsletters with pastel infographics claiming “mental health is a priority” right before announcing a mandatory 7 a.m. Zoom meeting. A conference on burnout hosted by the person who caused your burnout. A gift card for DoorDash in lieu of a raise. That’s not support. That’s hush money with a side of fries.
It gets especially absurd in industries where the job is being constantly available. Hospitality? Forget it. Work-life balance means texting a plumber at 3 a.m. and apologizing to a guest because the vending machine ate their Funyuns. Nursing? Teachers? Social workers? Y’all are out here building civilizations with duct tape and empathy, and someone’s still handing you a stress ball like that’ll help.
There’s a reason people fantasize about moving to the woods and making jam. Not because jam is spiritually fulfilling—but because the jam doesn’t email you at midnight. The jam doesn’t cc your manager. The jam doesn’t crash during a Teams update and take your soul with it.
We keep pretending like work and life are opposites. That if we just figure out the right planner or color-coded calendar, we’ll finally have it all together. But the truth is, most of us are holding on by a coffee-stained Post-it and a prayer to the tech gods that the Wi-Fi doesn’t drop mid-call.
Maybe the real answer isn’t balance at all. Maybe it’s boundaries with bite. Maybe it’s walking away from the table when it’s burning down. Maybe it’s realizing that being overworked isn’t a badge of honor—it’s a silent scream in spreadsheet form.
Or maybe it’s just rage-applying to remote jobs at 2 a.m. while eating cereal in your underwear, whispering “I deserve better” with each click.
Whatever your version looks like, just know you’re not alone in the absurdity. There’s no neat little ratio of work to life. For some of us, the Venn diagram is just a big, cursed circle that says “Burnout.”
And if anyone asks about your work-life balance, just look them in the eyes and say, “Oh, I balance it all right. I balance it on the edge of a mental breakdown with a smile and a muted mic.” Then spin around, light a lavender candle out of spite, and take a nap on company time. You’ve earned it.