WORK – LIFE HARMONY

In our class session, we discussed Pat Gelsinger’s book entitled “Balancing Your Family, Faith, and Work. The author recounted how he grew up in the farm while balancing his job at Intel and attending church with his wife. He was constantly pursuing further studies while continuing his job in his company. He described his overall experience as something similar  to juggling three tennis balls – Work, Family, and Church (God).

The author’s experience is very similar to what I’m going through right now. I try to juggle my work and study while still attending to my responsibilities to my family and my church. I currently live and work at Pasig while my fsamily and church is in Manila. I go home only every weekends to eat out with my family and enjoy each other’s company but the rest of my week is dedicated for my work and studies. Thankfully, I found a job that I truly like which gives me a good income that help sustain my personal needs as well as be able to support my family. I support my own education because I believe in continuous learning process and that there’s more that I can acquire that will be beneficial for my personal and career life in general. However, In my pursuit of career advancement and further education, I find myself sacrificing my role as a Son and Brother to my family. Also, I don’t give much time now in my church ministries unlike before. I plan to improve my quality of life by balancing my time equally to these three important aspects.

We also discussed in class the Work, Leisure, and Integration Matrix. We were group with four members each to discuss our own personal assessment  where we identify ourselves in the matrix. Four of us kind of belong to similar circumstances and ended up agreeing on most part of the matrix. However, upon discussing it with the class, it was liberating to hear other point of view under different set of circumstance. I learned deeper how each individual differences take part in shaping one’s perspective on career and life in general.

Personally, in terms of work, I view it as a career more than just a job to make ends meet. Income has become a deciding factor when I was choosing job but having experience the reality of the work I’m doing, I fell in love with it more. It is a facet where I can broaden my creativity and skills. I see my day to day work as a opportunity to continually better my craft. In terms of Leisure, I consider myself on the utility side more. The fact that I pursued MBA at an early age is a proof that I consider learning as a tool to enhance my skillset and knowledge base. I want to continue to “sharpen my saw” so I decided to use my free time to pursue graduate program. Lastly, in terms of integration, I believe I’m in the achievement level. I view my success as milestones and my failures as a challenge to learn more. In doing decision, I try my best to not weigh in so much emotion as to not affect my rationality.