Maniac Mondays: Work Life Balance in Today's World...Really?!

The Purple Elephant recently got a job at a corporate firm of sorts and the little mouse agreed that he would stay at home and tend to the house...but the owner of the production house was then all confused....should she now give up her job and let the Purple Elephant be the sole bread winner of the Meady's Musings Production House?

While pondering about it on this Maniac Monday she found this blog: Boy Girl Modern World which seemed to be a very informative blog on the topic by others doing research on the specific topic out of Australia!

Now apart from her muse-'the manicou at her gate at midnight' having a few marsupial cousins out down under the owner of the production house has very few friends out in Australia well in fact none apart from the guys she met here when she volunteered at the Red Earth Festival! So anyway it was quite a hemispherical shift but really worth the time difference to have a read! And of course in all good sense the blogosphere is one flat place where all is one! So seriously you should have a read of that blog!

However back to the owner of the production house's dilemma. A dilemma that is perhaps shared by many a reader....if you don't need money...would you work? And if so why? In fact this question overlaps with many other questions...it money did not matter and you could do anything you wanted what would you do and why? And of course it's about work life balance too because if it wasn't about money would you work less? Or would you choose to work for less money so you could have more free time I don't know for hobbies, family or simply to sleep more?

Or would you just want to use your free time and the money you had with the free time to help you find that elusive happy place?


I guess since the 1940s people would have been saying too that it all boils down to this...Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (please not image is re-published from this site-http://intuitiontellsmeso.wordpress.com/ which seems to be a very indepth blog on the human way of thinking and interacting and is perhaps worth a read:

So I guess in the case of the owner of the production house if the Purple Elephant was now the breadwinner and so helped with most of the lower levels of the pyramid. As none of the members of the production house can help the other with the sexual love bits unless they well used part of their wages to sign each other up on dating services for each of their species or matching making sites or put flyers out. Well or set each other up with friendly blind dates or meet ups. But they could at least show platonic love for each other and in that sense they do all belong to the Meady's Musings Production House. So then really the driver to work would be what comes at the top of the pyramid:

-Self Actualization: Vitality, Creativity, Self-Sufficiency, Authenticity, Playfulness and Meaningfulness

Now we have to agree however with some of Maslow's critics that it's probably not really a hierarchy of needs at all or for sure not a pyramid. But more a dynamic soup of things...interacting hot and bubbling with the other. Really a loss of one of the needs can have profound effects on the other causing a collapse or an expansion.

For instance history is ripe with cases where unrequited love has led to big works of art and also ripe with cases of persons jumping off a cliff when rejected! (Yikes!)

So who knows some might argue that the human needs really revolves around love or some might say freedom? And also some might say that it we are self actualized that all the other needs can somehow magically be filled by the laws of attraction, the Universe or even miracles! Many say if you follow your true calling the success and money will follow to provide for all the other material needs...

But then let's again ask what would be the drive (as Daniel Pink's new book is titled)for the owner of the production house to work if the Purple Elephant now had a corporate job that could take care of the running of the production house?

Well apart from maybe her going to work would mean she might find a mate?

Hmmm....what would be her drive as Daniel Pink's book asks? And as we discussed on last week's Maniac Mondays' post. What would be her true purpose? What job would she do not for the money but for the love of it...what job or purpose would she have such that it would be such a joy that it would be like not working a minute at all?

To be honest even after one week of thinking (since last week's post) like Winnie the Pooh the owner of the Meady's Musings Production House is going to have to think some more!

But speaking of things being centered around love and freedom we thought we'd queue up this favourite old tune on the blog and this one we were reminded of during the recently concluded Olympic games!