Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 117 of the Listening Time podcast.
Thank you all for listening.
I hope you're doing great.
I hope your English learning is going really well and that you're motivated to keep improving your listening and reach a higher level of comprehension.
In today's episode, we're going to talk about work-life balance.
So this is a topic that we hear about a lot nowadays, because nowadays people like to talk about the benefits of making sure your schedule is not too crazy and that you're not too stressed and that you can actually have a personal life outside of work.
That's something that we hear a lot about today.
And I'm not actually gonna talk so much about the hours that you work and how to organize your day to have more of a balance.
I'm not gonna talk about the normal talking points that people usually bring up.
I kind of want to talk a little more about the philosophies and attitudes that people have regarding work.
I'm going to talk about two extreme ends of the spectrum.
This just means two viewpoints or attitudes that are on the opposite sides of this debate, so to say.
And then I'll talk about what I think we should all aim for, which is a balance in between these two extremes.
So I think this will be a really interesting episode.
I'm just going to talk about my opinions, so it's okay if you disagree with me.
Don't get mad at me.
I'm just going to talk about what I think would be good for most people.
And before we move on, I want to mention that my membership payment model is going to change from now on.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk about work-life balance and, in particular, let's talk about the two extreme ends of the spectrum and then the middle, the balance that I think we should all aim for.
So let's start with the extreme of the workaholic.
If you've never heard this word before, what this refers to is someone who is addicted to work.
This is what they think about day and night.
And this person eats, drinks, and lives work.
That's a workaholic.
So workaholics usually feel like their meaning and their purpose comes from their job.
Their value, their purpose, all of that is defined by their career.
Of course, I'm generalizing here.
There are some workaholics that don't feel like this, but I'm trying to describe the people that are on the very extreme end here.
So those people feel satisfaction and they derive meaning almost purely through their career.
In English, when we say that you derive something from somewhere else, what we're saying is that you get this thing from that source.
So if you derive meaning from work, that means that you get meaning from that source, from your work.
So workaholics that are on the extreme end often derive their meaning and their purpose from their career.
This is how they feel satisfied in life.
If, for example, they didn't have their career, then it would be very hard for them to feel happy or feel good throughout their day.
So, again, I'm describing people that are more on the extreme end here.
Not everyone is like this.
And another thing that characterizes workaholics is that their day is very, very busy and there are many work hours throughout their day.
Sometimes people have this same schedule, but they're not a workaholic, right?
Some people have a very hard work schedule, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're addicted to their career.
But some workaholics choose this.
This is what they feel good doing, actually.
And so their schedule probably looks a lot different from someone else's schedule, someone who's not a workaholic, right?
And workaholics often brag about being busy.
The verb brag means that you talk about something to impress other people and to make them admire that thing that you're talking about.
So workaholics sometimes brag about how busy they are, and they talk about their busy schedule with pride.
So workaholics have these different characteristics if they're more intense workaholics.
Not all of them would agree with all of these statements, but again, I'm just trying to paint a picture of one end of the spectrum, the end where people are very addicted to their work, And I think that workaholics have some very good qualities.
I really admire people that have a good work ethic.
In English we use the phrase a good work ethic to talk about someone's attitude towards, about work that is positive and they value being proactive and productive and industrious.
That's someone who has a good work ethic.
And that term industrious means that someone puts their time to good use.
They produce things and work and are useful with their time.
So I really like those characteristics.
I like that attitude.
And I think that workaholics are often people that can deal with a lot of difficulties and a lot of stress.
And that's something that I need, because I'm not always very good at dealing with that, and that's another characteristic that I really admire about workaholics.
However, on the other hand, workaholics can neglect other parts of their lives sometimes and they might not be able to feel fulfilled by other things outside of work.
In English, when we use the word fulfilled, We're saying that someone feels satisfied by something.
So if you can't feel fulfilled by things outside of work, I think that's an imbalance.
I think that we should be able to feel happy and feel satisfied Even if our career suddenly ended, even if it suddenly ended tomorrow and something drastic happened.
I think that if you can't find things in life that fulfill you, then I think there's an imbalance there.
So that's why I mentioned this as being one end of the spectrum, but not exactly where I think most people should be.
But again, there are some very positive characteristics regarding workaholics.
And maybe you're a workaholic, and I don't want to talk down about you because, like I said, I actually admire a lot of your characteristics.
I wish I had more of that.
So, that's one end.
And then the other extreme is someone who's very lazy or we might say hedonistic.
The term hedonistic refers to a person that is only concerned with feeling pleasure, feeling good, doing what they want and decreasing any type of pain or anything like that, any negative, to as close to zero as possible.
So obviously, wanting to experience pleasure and wanting to decrease negative things and pain is something that all of us want.
Of course.
However, there's a certain limit here.
If, for example, we are only pursuing pleasure and we neglect other things because we only want pleasure, then we've surpassed the limit.
In English, when we say that you surpass something, we're saying that you go past it, you go over it.
So if you're doing that, then you surpass the limit And then it's no longer just a normal tendency of wanting to have pleasure, because we all want pleasure, and pleasure can be very good, of course.
But if we are only trying to seek our own pleasure and nothing else, then then of course we are only living a lifestyle that is selfish and is all about us.
And I don't think that's ideal, right?
I don't think we should only seek meaning and satisfaction just through having fun and getting what we want and feeling pleasure, everything we want to feel, at the expense of everything else.
In English, when we say at the expense of something, we're saying that you are achieving the goal while excluding or neglecting or hurting that other part.
So if you're only seeking pleasure at the exclusion of everything else, then that means that you're only trying to please yourself and you are living a self-indulgent lifestyle.
Someone that is self-indulgent is someone that only does what they want, and especially when it comes to things like being idle.
When you're idle, this just means that you're not doing anything productive.
You're just relaxing or having fun.
So those things are good, but in measure.
We don't want to dedicate our whole life to having fun and doing what we want, right?
We want to be able to do things that are productive, that require some sacrifice and, more importantly, that help other people as well and not just ourselves, right?
So I think that a really lazy or a really hedonistic person needs to look outwards, I might say.
Look beyond just themselves and see that there are other important things in life beyond our own desires, right.
And again, I think that it's good to try to have fun, to have pleasure, to relax, to seek these things out.
I think that those are good things.
But as I mentioned, we want to be balanced here.
We don't want to only focus on that.
That's when we have a problem.
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And so now let me talk about what I think we should aim for.
What is the balance between these two extremes?
Between the extreme workaholic who only derives meaning from their career, and and the hedonistic person who only derives meaning from pleasing themselves and feeling pleasure.
What's the middle ground?
Well, someone who has a good balance in between these two ends of the spectrum is is someone who can experience pleasure from working and from leisure.
The word leisure just refers to free time and the things that you do in your free time.
So someone who is balanced can have fun, can derive meaning, can be satisfied with being productive and working and being industrious, And they can also derive pleasure and meaning and satisfaction from things outside their work, things that they do in their free time, fun things in their life, their family.
Right.
Their friends, their faith.
Right.
These are things that they can derive meaning from. outside of the workplace, right?
And so someone who has a good balance probably has some hobbies.
I know that as an adult, it can feel difficult to have hobbies sometimes because Life is busy.
Maybe you have kids and the focus isn't always on you and the things you need to do or would like to do.
I understand that.
I agree with that completely.
It's kind of hard to have hobbies as an adult compared to when you're a kid or a teenager.
However, I still think it's good to have hobbies.
I think we should find things that help us derive pleasure from sources other than work, or sources other than just sleeping or doing nothing right.
So I think that it's good to have at least one hobby. and maybe multiple hobbies.
And I think that someone with a good balance tries to take advantage of the great places around them.
The world is beautiful and most of us.
Even if we don't live in the most beautiful place in the world, we can probably find some pretty cool spots to visit around where we live.
And we can enjoy the sunshine if it's a sunny day.
We can enjoy the little things that are nice and pleasant about the day.
We can try to Be more thankful for all the good things that we have and try to take advantage of these things and enjoy them.
So that's another thing.
And I think that someone with a good balance is someone who invests in other people.
So we don't want to just invest in ourselves anymore.
And we don't just want to invest in our career.
I think that if we invest in other people, this gives us a lot of satisfaction and meaning and it helps other people and helps us have good relationships with other people.
I think that we should focus on serving others and not just ourselves, of course.
And if you're more of a lazy person, then I think what's important is to acquire a good work ethic.
You might not be passionate about your specific job or one specific job, but I think that you can start to gain satisfaction from from producing, from creating, from being industrious.
I think you can start to value working hard, because it does actually feel good when you've completed a hard day's work.
It might not feel great in the moment, But once you've accomplished what you needed to do, it actually feels good.
There's actually a biological response afterwards that makes us feel satisfied, feel good when we've completed difficult tasks and we've overcome obstacles and things like that.
So I think that you can start to develop that work ethic.
You can start to become more goal-oriented and to gain satisfaction from achieving even just little goals or achieving what you needed to do that day.
And if none of that really gets you fired up and happy...
In English, when we say that you're fired up, this means that you're excited or emotional in a certain way.
In this case, it's positive, right?
Getting fired up about work.
If those things don't get you fired up and motivated, then just the fact of providing for yourself and for your family, if you have one That can give you satisfaction, even if you don't love your job.
But you can bring home the bacon, as we say.
This means that you make the money to keep your family maintained.
When you do that, that's also satisfying.
So maybe you don't get satisfaction from your individual job that much, but maybe just being productive and providing for your family or for yourself, that can be a good start to help you value your work more.
And so, I think that we need more hardworking people that also love life outside of work.
I think that's the summary of my viewpoints regarding this.
You might disagree with me, and that's okay, I understand, but I just wanted to give some opinions regarding this.
Alright, we'll stop there for today.
Remember that you can join my membership if you want my help understanding native speakers when they speak fast.
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All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
