ABSTRACT

During my first job out of college, I was renting a basement flat in Washington, D.C. I was living on an entry-level salary, so when I saw a table someone put out on the curb I snatched it. It was a nice table, with one minor fault: it was missing one leg. Propped up against the kitchen wall, it worked fine for breakfast and quick dinners. Then I had a couple of friends over. Long story short, a whole chicken and a bottle of wine ended up crashing to the floor. I look back on this incident when I think about how some of us fool ourselves that everything is fine. We spend long hours at work, and then when we come home we never really disconnect as we take phone calls and check e-mails. Because personal life is crowded out at home, it starts to play out in the office. We spend time texting friends and checking social media to keep up on what we missed because we were working when we were at home. Pressures build up, we struggle to disconnect, and stress slowly increases, affecting

our sleep and life satisfaction. Unless we find a way to create balance over the long term, our proverbial three-legged table will eventually crash.