I’ve always believed that balancing work and life is something that doesn’t exist. The whole idea of creating balance in life is hogwash.

There ain’t no such animal as work-life balance.

Can you imagine my surprise when Shaunta Grimes, one of my favorite medium writers, wrote an article on the subject? I was intrigued.

She called it BS. I thought she was talking about a Business Strategy, but it turns out she meant Bovine Secretion.

While her perspective is a little different than mine, we nevertheless agree on the fact that work-life balance is one of those buzzwords that got thrown around and was accepted in everyday vocabulary without anybody giving it much thought.

I’ve said this before; one of the life lessons that I learned from my amazing dad is not to accept everything you hear. So, I challenge myself to think deeply about things that don’t sit right with me.

First of all, we need to know the difference between balance and harmony. By not understanding and keeping these two concepts in mind, when dealing with life challenges, we create stress in our lives.

For stress management, we must distinguish between these two concepts.

Balance

Balance implies that there are two different things on the opposite ends of a scale that are of equal weight. But life and work are not two separate things. Work is merely a part of life.

It is the elevating of work to the status of equally deserving and the opposite of life itself that causes most of the modern-day problems.

Harmony

We bring about harmony when we recognize different aspects of something for their function and place within the whole. Sometimes one segment takes the lead while others play a supporting role, or even stay out of the way. Other times, multiple elements work with each other in an equal but separate measure. Every part is essential, but not at the same level at the same time.

Family, faith, friends, finances, and work all are parts of everyday life and have their place and purpose. When we recognize this and give each one its due respect and attention at any given moment in life, we create harmony. And it is a beautiful thing.

Balancing work with life becomes a problem when we elevate work to not only a higher status but one where we equate it to the sum of all other parts.

When we talk about work-life balance, we are implying balancing work with the rest of life.

It is time to put the notion of balancing work with life to bed and start focusing and talking about creating harmony in life because it is all-inclusive and a beautiful thing.

Rasheed Hooda is a published author and a regular contributor to ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium where writers support each other.

He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Get the Newsletter)

“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”