The 5 Stages Of Grief: How To Mourn The Absence Of A Work-Life Balance

Modern problems require modern solutions… and analogies to understand and relate to. Presenting a fresh perspective on an oft-discussed topic — a lack of work-life balance as the five stages of grief.

Dear applicant,

<Insert company name> is delighted to offer you the position of <insert job title> upon successfully completing the final interview round. 

To thrive at <Insert company name>, it takes more than half-hearted effort and lackluster energy. Here, success is defined by unconditional devotion. Perpetual readiness for action. Such unflinching, mindless faith in our mission that you remain unfazed by a little overtime and a slight expansion of responsibilities.

Of course, they are also dedicated to ensuring you have a work-life balance. Or at least, they say so in their onboarding documents. However, be warned: Sometimes the balance will tip to the advantage of the ‘work’ part of it all. Maybe more than often. Perhaps most of the time, if not all of it. 

It’s all to help you achieve your aspirations, though. Fortune favours those who… put a pin in the ‘life’ aspect of work-life balance, to be reviewed on an undetermined future date.

Please confirm your acceptance to give up on your work-life balance by signing this letter. 

Best regards,
Hiring Manager from Hell

3-word horror story: Work-life balance

As we embark on the adventure of adulting, the monsters under our bed morph from the visually horrific to the mentally monstrous. Case in point, the beast of work-life balance – specifically the insufficiency of it – that has cultivated its brutish reputation over the last half-decade or so.

And like all bogeys, a lack of work-life balance, too, is a symbol. A sign of the times, a representation of the current moment outfitted like a ghoul. The form this ogre assumes? Grief. 

Utter, consuming grief at the knowledge that you have been swept up by a toxic rise-and-grind culture. Only, what’s risen is your despair and what’s ground to dust is the potential of joy.

So, for you, demon hunter looking to exorcise the phantom of work so that you can get to the living end of the equation, an offer you cannot refuse: A chance to understand why the lack of a work-life balance can look, feel, sound, smell, and taste like the five stages of grief. 

Stage 1: Denial

You are hustling. Always on-the-go. Your job is not consuming every waking (and sometimes unconscious) moment of your life. You are part of a family sports team dedicated cohort (???) at work. You’re giving it your all, and it’s not affecting you negatively in any way whatsoever.

Extra work? Add it to the to-do list. Stay overtime? Can do! Give up your weekends? Done and done. You’re definitely not working too much. Just enough. Just what is needed. Just what anybody else in your position would do. Right? RIGHT?!

Stage 2: Anger

Success. Does. Not. Come. To. Those. Who. Slack. Off.

Repeat after me:

Missing major family bonding moments since you got this job justifies daydreaming about throwing your laptop out of the window.

That dartboard with your manager’s face on it hanging on your fridge door is completely, totally, absolutely normal.

A night routine that involves screaming bloody murder into your pillow before you fall into a restless sleep that is interrupted by nightmares of burning your workplace down is just… part and parcel of being a productive, valuable human resource employee.

You’re totally chilled out. So relaxed. That isn’t steam pouring out of your ears.

Stage 3: Bargaining

Okay. Nothing is wrong. It’s not like you’re that meme of the dog sitting in a burning room pretending nothing’s wrong.

So you don’t really like your job. So your boss is a dictator by any other name. So you don’t remember the last time you did anything but work. So you had a meltdown ~*small incident*~ in the break room the other day. It’s normal. Totally. Freaking. Normal.

You have goals! You’re ambitious! You’re committed to giving up your best years to the corporate-industrial complex! If you just work-hard-do-more-stay-the-course, it’ll all be hunky-dory.

This is fine. You’re fine. Everything is fine. ♫ You’re spinning like a ballerinaaaaa ♪

Stage 4: Depression

Waking up hurts. Getting ready hurts. Sitting at your desk and trying to concentrate and meeting arbitrary deadlines only to get more work added to a never-ending pile of deadlines — it all hurts.

You’ve left two friends plus your mom on read when they sent you that viral article about burnout because they’re obviously wrong. Burnout? Pfft. It’s not burnout. You’re just not hard-working enough or clever enough or dedicated enough to get this work done. 

Useless — that’s you. Even trying feels like too much effort. What is the point of anything? 

Stage 5: Acceptance

You can say it out loud. It’s okay, nothing bad will happen. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Maybe the hustle isn’t for you.

There! You did it! Well done. It has to have been difficult. You’ve been taught to think its opposite your whole life. Conditioned and indoctrinated, really. 

And if it were easy, you wouldn’t have had to surf the waves of the other stages of grief. You wouldn’t have been tossed off your board time and time again, trying and failing to find that elusive balance. But wipeouts are part of the process.

You’re here now, aren’t you? Crouched just right, catching the biggest waves, trembling only on occasion, and most significantly, able to climb right back on when you do take the rare tumble.

The aftermath of grieving

Once we have vanquished the demons and journeyed the non-linear grief of all work and no life, what next? What awaits us at the end of the rainbow? You might be disgruntled to learn that the pot of gold is… more work.

Grief – especially grief that is a product of systemic issues like capitalism – cannot end. So long as we have to work to expense our most basic needs, we will find ourselves stitched to a gutting lack of a work-life balance in small and big patterns.

Yet, there are ways to take a metaphorical seam ripper to this miserable embroidery. You have communities. Therapy. Hobbies. Travel. Nature. Art. Food. (Tenpy has tiny houses that combine most of these into soothing getaways designed to heal the overworked.)

Grief might persist, but nevertheless, so shall you. The next time the monster approaches, you’ll be ready to recognise it. You’ll know before it finds a hiding spot under your bed. You’ll keep your stakes and remedies handy, ready to battle the overwhelming army of overworking till you win the war. You’ll live.

Wear of the woes that come with a wobbly work-life balance? Tenpy is building little pockets of peace so you can escape the hustle of the job and the bustle of the city. Book a stay.