By Elizabeth

The other afternoon I was visiting with a friend and her niece, Stephanie. 

We were celebrating Steph’s recently completed master’s degree in neuroscience and hearing all about her new life back East working as part of a medical research team. 

I have known Steph since she was little, and she’s always struck me as…familiar. 

Not that I see myself in her exactly (the idea of me as a neuroscientist is laughable), but she has a kind of hardworking, dutiful seriousness that I recognize and relate to. 

It was a Jekyll and Hyde existence that eventually led to a mid-life career change and softening boundaries between what I do for work and who I am, but I never really shook that sense that there is no such thing as working too hard. 

I’m not alone. We live in one of the most work-obsessed nations in the world. 

As a culture, we’ve taught ourselves to equate brute labor with self-worth. 

And it’s not because we’re being well-compensated for it.

She is absolutely the dutiful, serious young woman I knew as a kid, but she doesn’t view those qualities as part of a punishing nose-to-the-grindstone philosophy when it comes to her career. 

In fact, she believes that having a proper work-life balance is going to be central to her success. 

As she put it: “How will I perform well at work if I don’t enjoy my life?” 

It's a great question. One I’ve been pondering ever since she and I had this conversation. 

And one I’m now presenting to you: How does your work, whatever that work is, relate to your life?

Elizabeth is a journalist who has been writing about health, beauty and wellness for over 20 years. She lives in Northern New Mexico with her two dogs and several hundred trees, shrubs, bushes and succulents.