Do you have a split personality? Embrace it!

A few weeks ago (maybe it was months ago?) someone handed me a clipping of Petula Dvorak’s column with the title “Working moms: Navigating our double lives.” If you haven’t read it, I recommend it as a quick little reality check.

I must say I laughed at the example of the woman on the playground with her blackberry.  I admire women’s general ability to switch gears on a dime and make the best of the time they have.  A few weeks ago, a co-working was mentioning that her daughter’s gymnastics school now has WiFi and she sits in the bleacher with her laptop during class. (Apparently this had an added benefit of helping her avoid having to talk with another particularly annoying parent!) Hooray for technology!

How do we manage it all? Is the famous “work-life balance” an achievable reality? Or do we need to continue to evolve our dual personalities? A senior colleague once put it in terms of “choices”… something along the lines of “there is no such thing as work life balance, it’s all about choices.”

I found this quote that I think sums it up:

“To acquire balance means to achieve that happy medium between the minimum and the maximum that represents your optimum. The minimum is the least you can get by with. The maximum is the most you're capable of. The optimum is the amount or degree of anything that is most favorable toward the ends you desire.” Nido Qubein

Maven’s advice: Embrace your split personality… it’s not really a split personality, you just have many facets of you and you know how to use them. And the more facets a diamond has, the more it shines.

p.s. In fairness, here in California, men seem to be culturally more inclined to put on the daddy hat, take bonding leave, and generally shoulder a portion of the overall “kid-sized” burden.