Spoiler alert: Work-life balance is not an unobtainable myth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. Get eight hours of sleep, spend time with your friends and family, prioritize your mental health, and focus on your passions. It’s just so easy! At least, it’s easy when you don’t have five classes worth of assignments piling up on your to-do list.
For undergraduate students at the University of Richmond, work-life balance might as well be a myth. For 75% of surveyed students, work heavily dominates their everyday life – much to their dissatisfaction. Nearly every participant wished for more time to spend on the things they enjoy and fewer obligations toward school. Most of us are not satisfied with our current work-life balance, but no one seems to view this as a fixable situation. After all, if you ask the students, they'll tell you it’s absolutely NOT their fault that they have so much work!
The University is an easy target. Students aren’t responsible for how much work professors assign, and therefore they think they’re not responsible for the state of their work-life balance. But this is a dangerous mindset to get into. Graduating college does not suddenly gift students with control over their lives, but instead shoves them into the workforce where more demands are piled on. There’s always going to be something that demands our time and commitment.
Playing the blame-game and avoiding responsibility for your own dissatisfaction is simply not going to cut it. Work-life balance is completely possible, but it requires making tough decisions. Maybe it’s dropping that fifth class. Maybe it’s taking the B+ instead of the A-. Instead of thinking about what is lost in the trade-offs, it might be beneficial to think about what is gained. Maybe you’ll get enough sleep every night or pick up a new hobby, or anything else--from spending more time with your friends to having alone time with zero responsibilities.
Listen, we’re not graded on the “life” side of our lives, so it’s easier to let those priorities slide. You can fail at life without having to see the F... And that's probably why most students aren’t happy with their current balance (or imbalance). The emphasis goes on the stuff that's graded because those grades are so easy to see. But blaming school for your inability to carve time out for yourself is just setting you up to avoid responsibility for your work-life balance in the future.
If you want to make a change in your priorities and the way you spend the time in your life, don't blame others and don't wait. Start now.