Do we live to work or work to live? This question will often come to mind of those who have worked for a few years already.

There have been millions of discussions and views about it continue every day.

Is Life all about work? Should it be all about work? Shouldn’t work be one small part of life rather?

Often the cliche gets thrown around, if you love what you do you will never be working in your life. Seriously?

Work is mostly about earning a living and when you are trying to make a living you will often have to do things that you don’t like or don’t want to do. And, that repeated effort will tire you and exhaust you mentally and physically.

Hence the question, do we live to work?

Most of our days & our lives go into doing things that we do to earn a living. And there ought to be more to life than that. Work has got to be a means to do, and experience other things in the world in your lives that you ‘want’ to do or explore.

Work shouldn’t be life. Work should be a part of life.

But then we are all becoming workaholic and constantly working (even when we are not working). There are phones and tablets and laptops that carry the work along with us, wherever we go.

Often people don’t see their existence beyond work and wonder what they would be doing if they were not working.

There are tons of things that you can do besides work or earning a living. Finding those for yourself can be a good start as well. But for starters here are a few.

• Finding yourself: – Who you are, what you want to do, what interests you. Get in touch with your inner self. Find yourself beyond your work identity. You are not your CV or your LinkedIn profile.
• Knowing the world better: – While working all you do is know the world through your ‘work eyes‘ where every help is transactional and every work that you do is competitive. Try to know the world better outside work. When did you last talk to your friends, when did you last invite your neighbors for tea? Get to know about things that you always wanted to know about but never found the time.
• Purpose of your life: – This is the most complex of all questions in the world. A question that everyone wants answers for and most of us never get. But the idea is not to get the answer but to go on the journey of finding that answer. Do that introspection, think, deliberate, and debate within yourself. You might not find ‘the‘ answer but you will find a few. And the journey itself could be pretty satisfying.
• Doing things that matter: – Everything matters but there are things that matter more than others. Find those things that matter. It could be helping a depressed friend, working at a homeless shelter, helping the next-door neighbor with repairs, teaching your kids kindness, going out there, and voting. Your work matters but there are things in life that matter more and doing those things in between your work is essential too.
• Reflecting upon your daily Life: – In the hubbub of your everyday life, we rarely have time to sit and reflect. If what we did during the day was worth doing. Did I do good, bad, or satisfactory? Do I even want to do that? Should I do it better the next day? Such a reflection is essential to improve the quality of work you do, and the quality of your life. And most importantly to do course corrections if the need be, at an earlier stage.
• Enjoying time with your loved ones: – That’s got to be one thing that we are really meant to do even if we do nothing else. Finding time to spend with your loved ones, being present at every special occasion and event. Showing your love and care is essential. That will provide you with mental and emotional support to keep going in life. Plus that’s a very important purpose of your life.
• Helping people in need: – Sometimes people will ask for it, sometimes they don’t. It’s the same as us. Sometimes we don’t ask for help but are thankful if someone offers it without asking. Understanding the needs of others and finding time to help them out is something very important in life. And that needs to be done selflessly, not with a transactional work mindset.
• Knowing about God: – Now you may belong to any religion but knowing about the almighty who created the world and us is intriguing and ever-fulfilling. Granted, we might not know God completely ever, but even knowing him/her a little and the path that God laid down is something worth exploring. At the end of the day, we aren’t going to live forever.
• Meditating, or Sitting Silently: – Now if you meditate or not, being self-conscious and sitting silently and monitoring your thoughts and things around us is something that we should all inculcate in our daily lives. It doesn’t matter if you are religious or not but if you want to calm your mind and be aware of yourself, this is something that can be done.
• Following your Hobby: – When we were young we used to have hobbies. And then we grew up and never found the time for those hobbies. Or the hobbies might have even changed over time. Nonetheless, find time for those lost or newly discovered hobbies. Be it strumming that guitar, collecting paper clippings, coin collection, vintage video games, comic books, reading books, or anything but do it. That will bring joy to you like nothing else. Indulging in things that we like is a great satisfaction and usage of time.
• Music concerts, Matches, Plays, Theater: – Go attend that concert, watch that play that you always wanted to but couldn’t due to the time crunch. If you have never attended one then go and explore it, you might develop a new interest. Beyond television, it’s good to see events live, it’s a totally different experience to immerse yourself in it.
• Plan for things: – Find time beyond work to plan for things that are important in life. You plan for your office tasks, you put up a project plan, the same way plan for things in your life. Not just the vacations but everything that you can, visiting grandma, weekly dinner with friends, attending the pottery class, car repair, helping kid with the dollhouse, cleaning desk, meeting relatives, wishing birthdays, attending funerals, giving your friends a phone call, and such. If you plan for it, more likely you will do it. If you just think about it during your work hours, the thought is going to get washed away with your next incoming email. So it’s better to plan for things beyond work.