“Hurry up, you’ll miss the bus!” “What? you didn't have time to finish your lunch?!” “I can’t meet you after work today; it’ll be 8 PM before I reach home in this traffic.” These are just a few examples of the rhetoric I experienced while growing up and merging into the hustle of life. From childhood to the elusive age of retirement, it often feels as though we are hamsters on a wheel, waiting for a treat only to hop back on after a brief moment of appreciating how thankful we are to have a wheel at all.
I watched my hardworking sister wake up before sunrise to catch a bus to her university, an hour away from home. I saw her return only to catch a brief breath before diving back into her academic hustle, leaving perhaps an hour or two each day to connect with family or friends. It was then that I intentionally chose to find a way to achieve work-life balance. As a young adult, I remained vigilant when work demanded too much of my life; when I hit my 30s, I intentionally chose work over life when I needed an escape. I wondered: is this what work-life balance looks like? Do you simply choose one over the other and hope the cosmos eventually evens it out?
Now, as a millennial mom with Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids who have minds of their own; having lived through the COVID crisis and witnessing the AI era unfold; I can’t help but wonder: what will my kids choose? What will my peers be forced to choose?
As a corporate professional with a passion for building meaningful relationships and storytelling, I am curious about how our relationship with work and life evolves. For women in particular, I believe this represents a naturally uplifting shift in our "gender game".
Nearly a decade ago, MullenLowe released a beautiful video honoring moms for Mother’s Day. It resonated deeply with many, and it has stayed with me ever since. Women, being multitaskers by nature, have always been entrepreneurs at heart. As the world adapts to new generations' expectations regarding remote work and the definition of productivity in the age of AI, women have already been adapting to these realities for decades.
The dictionary defines work as an “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result”. The narrative then shifts: for whom do we do this work, and what gets us paid?
Traditionally, the man’s role was to earn and provide, while women performed the physical labor at home. We were often not allowed to think or voice our thoughts. In the past few decades, through silent determination and the support of allies, we began exerting our thoughts and actions, stepping out to work outside the home. But that did not stop us from working inside our homes, either. We experienced “quiet promotions” and “role creeps”. We were expected to do more and ask for less. We were, essentially, forced to fuse work with life.
I have lived with the anxiety of mental overload, where both worlds demanded my time. While the work itself isn't always taxing, the thought of everything that needs to be done in both spheres made me anxious, irritable, and angry with myself and others. I was exactly where I didn’t want to be, the hamster on the wheel, trying to figure out how to balance. But the truth is, I was already doing it; I just wasn't "in the moment" and became overwhelmed by the pileup of thoughts. Balance is only necessary when you view work and life as two extremes. When you live in a fused world, those extremes disappear.
“Work-life Fusion” is a term I discovered recently while listening to The SHE.E.O EFFECT podcast episode. This phrase has echoed in my mind, providing a significant perspective shift. As an agile practitioner, I’ve learned to break programs down into simple, manageable tasks. The agile mindset isn't about tackling the mountain all at once; it’s about looking at the next few steps while keeping the vision of the summit ahead.
I am beginning to see everything I do simply as life; dealing with each piece as a task to be completed in the present moment. I can immediately see the effect this shift has on my anxiety. I’ve discovered that this is what successful entrepreneurs with busy lifestyles do: they give undivided attention to whatever the moment calls for.
Women have never seen work as 9-to-5 and life as everything after. For us, work and life are one, with mindful rest and self-care integrated into the routine. We see our activities as meaningful to ourselves and those around us. We have always been multitasking entrepreneurs: problem-solving, innovating, and providing emotional support in everyday life. If you ask me what I wish we had, I would say collegiality and support (both personally and professionally), and fair compensation (both monetary and non-monetary). It also never hurts to receive affirmation for our efforts.
To the Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zs shaping this evolving world: would you choose work-life fusion over work-life balance? What does “productivity” and “compensation” look like in this new era? Perhaps it’s time to take a cue from a woman.
