Or do we need to love in order to
work well. Well we all know that one person in the office that is clearly over
worked and under fucked. These over achievers have a full time job and are
divorced from any kind of normal social life. You can tell because they drive
everyone (except maybe the CEO) crazy and take work matters way too seriously.
They make others in the workplace look bad because they may sometimes tattle
about collegues’ phone, Facebook, and personal email use. So people are
wondering, “Is it better to have a full time job and no life or a full
time life and part-time job?”
For the most part, work lives and
love lives have been seen as polar opposite, non-overlapping life matters. But
it’s hard to argue that there has to be some sort of relationship between work
satisfaction and relationship satisfaction, no matter how small. I mean first
of all, work relationships are fairly common just because the pool of eligible
singles dramatically decreases as soon as one finishes undergrad. Even in
graduate programs a significantly larger percentage of students are married or
engaged compared to undergraduate programs.
Do we need to focus on work,
instead of focusing on fun in our lives? Well Freud, the Father of Psychology,
thinks not, he suggested that the overarching goal of psychotherapy is to allow
the patient to love and to work. And notice he lists love first suggesting it
may be first and foremost important. In fact, even employers looks for employees
with stable family and love lives. It is far more useful for employers to hire
someone with a wife and children because they know they have incentive to keep
their job and they have the motivation to do the work that is expected from
them.
Is it even beneficial to put work
over love in the long term? To answer that, there is evidence the people with
secure attachment styles are also very successful when it comes to work: they
are less likely to put off work, are least likely to have difficultly completing
tasks, they enjoy their vacation time, and are less likely to let work
jeopardize their life. But those with alternative attachment are both
unsuccessful at relationships and at work…so there is a connection! The exact
connect cannot be pinpointed because not enough research has been conducted on
the relation between the two.
There is no reason that pursuing your personal life within
reason has to come in between or sacrifice any of your work efforts. So if
you’re waiting to plan your next vacation or if you’re weary of asking your
boss to let you leave early to get ready for a hot date tonight, I hope you GO
FOR IT!...... Not like I’m condoning sexting or Skyping during work...
But if you live a little then you’ll see you’ll work a little harder too.
