by Dan Oswald
Sometimes we lose sight of what’s really important in life. We get wrapped up in our work and let everything else suffer. As we allow our work to take over our life, it might be our workout routine that gets forgotten or a hobby that fades away. And if you can handle the extra 10 pounds or you weren’t all too passionate about the hobby, well, life goes on. But more often than not, when we get really busy at work and we let it take over our lives, it’s the people we care about most who pay the price.
There’s nothing wrong with work. It can be incredibly rewarding. Often, it allows us to use our talents to support a greater good. And it’s certainly financially necessary for most of us. But if we lose our perspective and get too wrapped up in our work, it’s our relationships that suffer. The people we care about most are the ones who are forgotten when we can’t let go of our work.
Over the weekend, one of our BLR teammates’ husband was in a tragic mountain biking accident. He suffered a spinal cord injury and lost all feeling and mobility from his chest downward. The young couple has been married just over a year, and they now face a huge life-changing battle together as he recovers. I can’t tell you how heavily this weighs on my heart. Work is not that important—people are.
One thing work does give us is more people in our lives for us to care for and who care about us. Most of us spend more waking hours each day with our coworkers than we spend with our own families. As a result, some of our best friends are those we work with. So when colleagues are struck by a tragedy like this, they should know their coworkers will be there to support them in any way. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of the BLR family and the way they’ve rallied around their friend and coworker.
Friends, family, loved ones—the relationships in our lives are what give us true purpose, joy, and satisfaction. Sure, work can provide some of that as well, but it’s the people we care about who really make life worth living. It’s sad that we lose sight of the importance of our relationships, and it’s something we all need to guard against vigilantly.
It shouldn’t take a tragedy to remind us of what’s really important in life, but sometimes we forget. So if your work-life balance is tipping the scales way too far to the work side, step back and consider what’s really important to you. I suspect the “what” is really “who.” Then make the necessary adjustments to get your work-life balance to an appropriate equilibrium. You might even start by apologizing to the people you care about most for the times you’ve allowed work to come before your relationship. It’s not a bad place to start.
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Ryan St. Lawrence, the husband of BLR employee Kim St. Lawrence. You can find it at https://www.gofundme.com/2jnf55gm.