Work Life Balance Quotes

“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
― Alain de Botton

“Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress: Working hard for something we love is called passion.”
― Simon Sinek

“Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls-- family, health, friends, integrity-- are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”
― Gary Keller, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

“A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.”
― Alain de Botton

“I can't comprehend living to work, but then I'm afraid of working just to live.”
― Jessica George, Maame

“You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life.”
― Heather Schuck, The Working Mom Manifesto

“You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel—a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady”
― H.G. Wells, When the Sleeper Wakes

“Perhaps the answer is that it is necessary to slow down, finally giving up on economistic fanaticism and collectively rethink the true meaning of the word “wealth.” Wealth does not mean a person who owns a lot, but refers to someone who has enough time to enjoy what nature and human collaboration place within everyone’s reach. If the great majority of people could understand this basic notion, if they could be liberated from the competitive illusion that is impoverishing everyone’s life, the very foundations of capitalism, would start to crumble (p. 169).”
― Franco Bifo Berardi

“Very well then! I'll write, write write. He let the words soak into his mind and displace all else.

A man had a choice, after all. He devoted his life to his work or to his wife and children and home. It could not be combined; not in this day and age. In this insane world where God was second to income and goodness to wealth.”
― Richard Matheson, Collected Stories, Vol. 1

“Did you ever stand on a street corner in American at five o'clock in the morning?
I did.”
― Jack Kerouac

“No, they didn’t have any money, the sea was dangerous and men were lost, but it was a satisfying life in a way people today do not understand. There was a joinery of lives all worked together, smooth in places, or lumpy, but joined. The work and the living you did was the same things, not separated out like today.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Always remember that whatsoever is happening to you, is happening within you, and whatsoever you are doing, you are doing with yourself. Even when you are angry and hitting somebody else, you are doing something with yourself. The other is just a screen on which you project.”
― Osho, Beloved of my heart: A Darshan diary

“[Clayton] Christensen had seen dozens of companies falter by going for immediate payoffs rather than long-term growth, and he saw people do the same thing. In three hours at work, you could get something substantial accomplished, and if you failed to accomplish it you felt the pain right away. If you spent three hours at home with your family, it felt like you hadn't done a thing, and if you skipped it nothing happened. So you spent more and more time at the office, on high-margin, quick-yield tasks, and you even believed that you were staying away from home for the sake of your family. He had seen many people tell themselves that they could divide their lives into stages, spending the first part pushing forward their careers, and imagining that at some future point they would spend time with their families--only to find that by then their families were gone.”
― Larissa MacFarquhar

“You can escape completely, seeking an alternative life, or you can play the game and go absent without leave. How you do it is up to you.”
― Fennel Hudson, Wild Carp: Fennel's Journal No. 4

“The real measure of work is not what it delivers,
but what it does to the people who deliver
it.”
― Jamie Mallinder, Harm By Design: Psychosocial Risk Management at Work

“We've been taught to search outside ourselves, but the real solution was never out there. It's not about finding more energy, it's about learning to access and direct it.”
― Dr. Suzanne Bober

“Humans and their obsession with chasing what's not meant for them... it’s the classic tragedy isn't it?

We think you know something God doesn't.

We think if we suffer enough, the universe will finally owe us a prize. We’re just romantics in a world that prefers accountants.

We like to wake up and say, 'I almost had it.' No, you didn't. You were never even close.

So cheers to the god damn fools who dream.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“We can't fix a how problem with a where solution.”
― Amanda Schneider, Work for What's Next: Why Workplace Culture is Failing and How the Next Generation Can Fix It

“Who gives a flying fuck about Q3 projections? When you are on your deathbed, rattling out your last breath, are you going to think fondly about the time you optimized the synergy of your workload? Bullshit! You’re going to think about the women you didn’t sleep with, the wine you didn’t drink, and the fights you didn’t start because you had an early meeting the next morning.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“The only way out is to burn the memo, piss in the water cooler, and run screaming toward the horizon before the bastards turn you into a statistic!”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“Work that is congruent with personal principles is a source of energy. Work that sacrifices personal principles drains personal energy.”
― Frederick F. Reichheld, The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value

“My insomnia had gotten so bad recently that my boss pulled me aside more than once and ordered me to go home early, a humiliation I didn’t need. I got it, though. Climbing power poles and working with electricity was no joke, and safety was critical. I had to do better.”
― October C. Moore

“There's death and then there is first morning after letting someone go…
That split second where you reach across the sheets and your hand finds nothing but cold cotton.

That’s the shittiest feeling in the world.

The sun comes up like a police spotlight, demanding answers you don’t have.The coffee tastes like ash. The birds singing outside sound like they’re mocking you.
You realize you have to relearn how to be a singular noun, and frankly, I’m not sure how to do that just yet”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“To be safe... it is a kind of death. You wish to be protected from the sting of the world?

You want the world to be a soft, pink nursery! It is a delusion of the highest order!

The heart must break to open.

You must face the horror!

You must stare into the abyss until it blinks!

Do not hide in the bunker! Charge into the f*cking fire!”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“Society doesn't want you happy, and it doesn't want you dead. It wants you 'Okay.'

Just functional enough to work, just sad enough to buy things to feel better.

'Okay' is the kill zone. 'Okay' is where dreams go to die slowly.”

So Do not be 'Okay'! Be rabid! Be ecstatic! Be a menace to the status quo!”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“The shrinks will tell you obsessions are curable.

You dry out, you get clean, you take up meditation, and you learn to sit quietly in a room.

But let’s be honest. People built like us don't get ‘cured.'

You drop one obsession and you violently latch onto the next!

From politics to whiskey to the absolute, terrifying pursuit of the Truth!

You swing from madness to madness, because the alternative is a slow, agonizing death by boredom!”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“Look, we all like to think we have our shit together.

You start to think you've seen it all.

You got your armor on, your guard up, and you know exactly what's waiting around the next corner.

Until the collision......

We all eventually meet that one women we just weren't prepared for.

You aren't ready for the way she looks at you. You aren't ready for the things she make you crave.

And suddenly, all those walls you built don't mean a damn thing.

But heaven help you, you buy the ticket and take the ride anyway.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“There’s a quiet kind of poetry in knowing your place in this world.

Now, some have the magic touch—they can take a little fire and a few raw pieces of the earth and turn it into a damn symphony.

I ain't one of ‘em.

But I’ll tell you what I was born for.

I was born to lean against this very counter, nursing a glass of something strong, watching watching the beautiful way her hands move.

My art is keeping the stories rolling, being the low, steady voice in the background while she work her magic in fucking kitchen .”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“The leader’s job is to stir the pot without letting it boil over. To regulate disequilibrium. To keep people in a productive, discomfort zone.”
― Jerry Roth, What Would the Boss Do? 2.0

“We have the right, and we have the duty, to have a good time!”
― Jerry Roth, What Would the Boss Do? 2.0