Recently, a few posts on Brazen Careerist about work-life balance have caught my attention. Many people have strong opinions on the matter. Jake on Jobs is of the “work now, play later” mindset. He says, “…Work/Life balance is not something 20-somethings should be worried about. Instead, my suggestion is to work your butt off until you find a job that doesn’t feel like work.” Whereas Jenny Blake talks about looking at your overall quality of life, “…part of the reason I was feeling so tired was that I let work completely take over my life…the more I let things that energize me fall out of my routine, the more tired I become, and the less able I am to perform high-quality work.” My stance: I don’t think you can get to a place where it doesn’t feel like work unless you have a good quality of life. In other words, good personal life is complementary to good work life.

Many of us millennials are focusing our twenties on our careers, and I am definitely one of them. I push myself at work and am looking to grow myself in my free time. I have designed my lifestyle to be conducive to work my buns off (I wish that were literal…): I live alone, I am far away from my family, I’m educated, I’m single, I have an open schedule and I dress for success every single day (I truly love the way I look in a suit). However, I’ve realized that focusing my twenties only on work is no way to live.