doi: 10.3389/fped.2015.00102 Work Life Balance – What Balance?

“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. ” Anonymous. This quote stands out because as we highlight our career goals and strategically plan for them, our personal lives often happen as an afterthought. To be successful at achieving a work–life balance, we should pay equal attention to planning all spheres of our life. While God and Family have been the bedrock in my own life, I am still being groomed for a successful career. On closer examination, I have found that I was subtly prepared for personal life as well. I still remember my Aunt calling me with the following words, “Come and learn to cook so you won’t starve. ” Or “Come and learn to do laundry so you can wear clean clothes.” While I made clear career goals and worked methodically toward them, my personal life was sacrificed on the altar of success, with the expectation that someday I would pay myself back. That strategy works well in the short-term, but in the long run, it breeds resentment, bitterness, and an unbalanced life and dare I say it is unsafe. It took tragedy of unprecedented proportions to teach me that in the game of life there are no opportunities for payback. Shanafelt et al. in their paper “Burnout and satisfaction with work life balance among us physicians relative to the general US population ” found that physicians were more likely to be dissatisfied with their work–life balanc