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This blog is to understand and explore the ways to develop a work-life balance. As a lot of working professionals moved to a work-from-home environment in 2020, the lines between professional and personal life have blurred significantly. The companies are trying to explore how to offer their employees a more flexible working environment. However, it is seen that most professionals are working more and finding it hard to spend quality time with their families and dedicating even lesser time for their personal spiritual growth.

Our mentor teaches us these 5 simple ways to live a meaningful life.

1. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

First, we need to realize and accept with complete conviction that we alone are responsible for our growth. We need to commit to spending time in our own company. In this world of instant gratification, the ability to sit quietly without doing anything is diminishing.

According to French philosopher Blaise Pascal, 

2. SURRENDER/LETTING GO

If you’ve ever heard of a drowning accident, you know that the person struggles a lot, but when they die, their body floats on top of the water. This is a miracle. Once the struggle stops, the floating begins. The water was the enemy for that person; the same person (body) started floating on top of the water as soon as he surrendered to the water. This story should change our perspective about our need to control things. When we add God in everything we do, we start seeing God in everything.

Surrendering doesn’t mean letting go of our responsibility, it means giving our 100% attention and focus in the moment and letting go of the need to control the result or expect anything specific. It’s obvious for us to expect a positive result for the hard work we put in, but if we are surrendered, we develop patience and even if we don’t get a positive outcome, we continue doing the job at hand.

For example – If we want to become fitter we start exercising; do we see any result after the hard work on one day or even one week, but if we are patient and enjoy the journey, we will one day start getting fitter.

Our mentor tells us to start adding God’s grace into small things in our lives and let go of our ego and the need to control.

Let go and let God….

3. HOW DO YOU DEPLOY YOUR RESOURCES?

Much like in our professional life, we have some resources that we can deploy to achieve our goal. The biggest resources given to us are our time and our focus.

Harvard University hosts an alumni reunion every 5 years. It is usually observed that people stop coming to those reunions after the first few times. Friends enquired about the people who didn’t come to the reunions and found that they were all going through a difficult phase in their lives that had caused significant pain to them and their loved ones. All these people were very bright and had a very clear plan to succeed in their life, but they found themselves in these painful situations like divorce or corruption charges or a tiff with their children. Why? The common thing was that they all focused on the immediate results, that one promotion, that one large sale they wanted to make, that one new job that they had been chasing, that one big project that we want to complete. All this focus on the immediate results made them successful in their professional career, but their life was meaningless, they hadn’t made anybody else’s life better, their families were falling apart. They hadn’t focused on anything that didn’t return any immediate results. The meaningful things in life like spirituality, peace, happiness, family take time to show any result; these are the things that make life worth living.

• When we make a commitment to not use our phone while eating dinner with our family, we don’t get any tangible return, but that’s what makes our family connect better.  
• When we commit to meditating each day, there is no immediate return, but that’s what brings peace and harmony in life
• When we commit to adding God in our lives by reading about spirituality, there is no immediate return, but that’s what changes our perspective about what’s truly important in our lives.

We all want to feel peaceful, happy, and content but we don’t deploy our resources (time and focus) each day to practice the things that will lead to these results.

The same principle applies in the corporate world also. Most companies fail because they look at the immediate result. The company, Blockbuster refused to change its business model to online movie rental even after Netflix came to the market because Blockbuster was too focused on the immediate return from the investments. In 2012, Blockbuster reported bankruptcy and Netflix reached 8Bn USD by 2016. The reason to share the example of a business is that the nature of the decision-making that caused destruction is the same i.e. focus on what gives the most return in the immediate future. Whereas the meaningful things in life take time, patience, and love to show results.

Our mentor teaches us to enjoy the process and the journey.

In Bhagavad Geeta, Lord Krishna tells Arjun, the warrior

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥

This means that we have the right to perform the actions, we are not entitled to the results. Lord Krishna also suggests to Arjun that he should never let the fruit be the purpose of his action.

4. THE MEASUREMENT OF LIFE

Our mentor points out another interesting perspective. The measurement of life. How do we make our life worth living? What really matters in life? Is it our money, possessions or our position, or something else? Is our life meaningful, does it have a purpose? How do we know that?

God doesn’t employ accountants. He doesn’t look at the number of things we do or the amount of money we make. Our mentor teaches us that our life is measured in the moments we choose to serve others.

Our Mentor has taught, and many people have also experienced that when we measure our lives, it doesn’t matter how high we go in the organization chart, what kind of cars we have driven or the clothes we have worn, what really matters is our personal relationship with God.

5. GIVE WHAT YOU WANT

Our mentor introduces us to a very simple, but very profound and effective technique.

Give out to the others what you want in your life.

This principle adds value and meaning to our life. A life lived in the service is a life worth living. In modern times while we have been able to achieve a lot materialistically, but we have developed a sense of possession towards those things, we are acquiring and gathering more, but we are sharing less. This prevents the natural flow of things which causes strain in nature, and we are seeing the impact of that with marriages failing, children disrespecting their parents, reduced harmony in the neighborhood, etc.

Our mentor teaches us to be generous because that’s the natural flow of the world. You don’t need to have a lot to share a lot. Start giving, it doesn’t matter what you give, it’s the act of giving that brings about happiness and significance to our life. Give a smile, pay a compliment, give appreciation, give some part of your salary/profit for the benefit of someone else, carry out a selfless act each day, no matter how small.

All thanks to our mentors to introduce these principles to us. Most of us are able to strike a balance between work and life in order to lead a stress-free, significant life. The question is,

Will you choose to matter?