Back in the day, you really were what you did: instead of heading off to college, young adults would prepare to join the family business. We have the surnames to prove it - Baker, Cooper, Taylor, Smith. Work and family were one in the same, whether it was the family farm, the family trade, or the royal family. Now, internships have replaced apprenticeships. We work hard to separate our family and social life from our profession, dividing our lives into two worlds. One must have a personal e-mail and work e-mail, home phone and work phone, and be careful whom to friend on facebook. We try to maintain some shred of privacy in a naked culture and find balance between conflicting demands.
If we try to devote any more time to our family world than to the other, then something must be wrong. They call it lazy, apathetic, unmotivated, distracted. Your boss never stops to think that while you're an energetic, self-starting go-getter in the office, your family might describe you as the opposite. Absence and tardiness have the same consequences even when one is off the clock.
Despite our change in attitude, the fact still remains: Family comes first. These are the values that our lives were built on. So why has this become so hard to understand? Why do we have to beg and plead when someone we love is in trouble or seriously ill?
I believe if there is to be an imbalance, the scales should always tip in favor of family. Jobs come and go, but the people you love are to be cherished for as long as they are with you.
- wit -
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