Your life balance

"The problem with the rat race is, even if you win, you're still a rat" ~ Lily Tomlin ~

There was a time, in the not-so-distant past, when families had to give up everything to achieve the financial security they dreamed of. Maybe you remember those decades, maybe you are too young to remember those times.

These were the days when climbing the corporate ladder was a revered activity, and wives and children fondly gazed at photos of the breadwinner to remember if a poor, exhausted father had blue or brown eyes. .

Big corporations have moved workers from town to town like pawns on a chessboard and, if you had any hope of climbing the ladder to senior management positions, you packed the wife and kids and got moved from Chicago, to Boston, New York. , in Tokyo.

In the years that followed, the divorce rate soared, fathers lost contact with their families and died of heart attacks and strokes at an alarming rate. When these men retired, they felt useless and unproductive.

Over the years, the identity of these men had become inextricably linked to their success at work. New retirees wondered who they were and why they lived with women who were completely foreign to them. And what happened to those dear children who lived in the house?

Then, women entered the workforce in earnest and joined the rat race.

Lest you think this rat race is over, look at the evidence of stress-related deaths and illnesses, an increase in the average number of hours worked by employees in the US and around the world, the number of divorces and children skyrocketing single-parent families.