On Quantity

A few years ago I told my therapist that I felt conflicted about thinking about work when I was not at work. For example, while doing the dishes, being at the park with the kids, or riding the bike with them. As my therapist encouraged me to do (what is the question? he would patiently ask when I would share a statement without a question), I then asked him:

"Does that make me a bad father or husband?"

What he said next, had a huge impact on how I felt about some of my actions.

He asked me back:

what is the one universal attribute that can make anything good or bad?

I gave up after a solid 5 minutes, and then he revealed the answer to me: it's quantity.

How much are you thinking about work? All the time, or every once in a while, when idling? Do you feel that it's so much that you are neglecting something or someone else more important (including myself)?

It's like chocolate, he continued: one spoon is ok, the whole jar not quite. Or wine: a glass is probably fine, but the whole bottle?

In conclusion, I believe that in life, like at work, there is a certain threshold beyond which we should probably reconsider. How do you find the threshold? Life is whispering to us all the time and we just need to be willing to listen to it.