Balancing the personal & the public
Attended a two day seminar with regards to job search skills, things to look out for during interviews and employers expectations. I am both eager to step out into the working world to pick up other skills outside the academic realm and also to work in a different environment. At the present moment, I would be continuing my studies for another year (decided on this after struggling with myself for sometime & eventually figure out I should just do it!) since its likely that I won't be stepping back to school after I graduate (I like to move on in life and to disrupt your career and study again seems to feel a bit like backtracking).
Everyone dreams of holding big jobs, earning good pay, being a high flier and enjoying the high life either because they really want these things or because society uses this as a gauge for success and we've come to internalize it as something we want. Those who have the qualities for being such a high flier might not make it there simply because of the obstacles in the way or other due considerations.
The modern working world isn't very friendly towards the family life. We're so connected these days that it does not seem to make a difference the time of day or the day of the week that we are in. Any day, any hour, can be a working day. We twist and turn our entire lives topy-turvy and organize it so that it would fit our work schedules; I'm hardly surprise that work has become the center of gravity for many (not a very healthy thing, considering how volatile the labour market has become). How do you strike the balance between work and family? Where do you draw the line so that your family life doesn't suffer and at the same time, you don't compromise your career advancement either? The man might not have so much of a problem (apologies to the feminists out there, but this is so very true) because its still acceptable for the man to place their careers before the family and leave that to the woman. Then what is going to happen, may I ask, to the poor modern working woman? Especially when the children reach their teen years (I'm sure most of you know that parents especially are very concern about this stage in life when the child starts to experiment with who he/she wants to be & think about issues like "Who am I?"). How should she balance work and family?
These concerns doesn't seem very important for people my age, but eventually, we would come to face them as have every other working individual. There's no strict or hard and fast formula about this.. and gradually I'm coming to believe that sometimes for the sake of family, you might have to risk or slow that race to the top.
Everyone dreams of holding big jobs, earning good pay, being a high flier and enjoying the high life either because they really want these things or because society uses this as a gauge for success and we've come to internalize it as something we want. Those who have the qualities for being such a high flier might not make it there simply because of the obstacles in the way or other due considerations.
The modern working world isn't very friendly towards the family life. We're so connected these days that it does not seem to make a difference the time of day or the day of the week that we are in. Any day, any hour, can be a working day. We twist and turn our entire lives topy-turvy and organize it so that it would fit our work schedules; I'm hardly surprise that work has become the center of gravity for many (not a very healthy thing, considering how volatile the labour market has become). How do you strike the balance between work and family? Where do you draw the line so that your family life doesn't suffer and at the same time, you don't compromise your career advancement either? The man might not have so much of a problem (apologies to the feminists out there, but this is so very true) because its still acceptable for the man to place their careers before the family and leave that to the woman. Then what is going to happen, may I ask, to the poor modern working woman? Especially when the children reach their teen years (I'm sure most of you know that parents especially are very concern about this stage in life when the child starts to experiment with who he/she wants to be & think about issues like "Who am I?"). How should she balance work and family?
These concerns doesn't seem very important for people my age, but eventually, we would come to face them as have every other working individual. There's no strict or hard and fast formula about this.. and gradually I'm coming to believe that sometimes for the sake of family, you might have to risk or slow that race to the top.
posted by Ah Cat at 6:38 pm
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