Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the first post on this new blog! I am completely new to posting (and hosting for that matter!) but have enjoyed reading blogs so much that I felt compelled to join in and start writing.

There is plenty to be found on the web already under the headings of work, career and job satisfaction but the writing and opinion pieces I find most interesting are something of a minority view at this time. The title of this blog reflects just one of the differences that is part of a new discussion and approach in this area. To start, I'll offer up a couple of definitions:

work/life fusion: understanding an individual's values, talents and goals and applying them to the pursuit of personal success.

and for all of us who aren't nuclear physicists

fusion: when two or more things join or combine.

The work/life fusion concept grew from a closer study of the work/life balance principle. In my current and previous professions, work/life balance has been a very useful, often laudable principle but, on closer examination, there may be a fundamental flaw in its reasoning.

Work/life balance separates 'work' and, for want of a better phrase, 'non-work'. Having made this separation work/life balance then sets us forward in a continual struggle to equalise the two. The fusion hypothesis argues that, in doing this, work/life balance essentially creates opposition. It goes on to suggest that where such an opposition is used to support reasoning, it can lead to one side feeling compromised or suppressed, especially at moments of critical decision (e.g. promotion, relocation, career change and so on). 

Regardless of how much we would like it to happen, we can't send someone else to work in our place and, because you are the same person who leaves the house in the morning and returns home later that day, work/life fusion looks at the individual in the singular, the individual as a whole.

In taking this approach, work/life fusion suggests that all of our individual priorities (decisions, behaviours, motivations, rewards and actions) can be interpreted using the same set of values. It also argues that when this set of values is trained and tested (i.e. underpinned by a greater degree of outward and inward knowledge, reliance and direction) the resulting change in our relationship with work can edge us all closer to a vocation and/or closer to our individual definitions of work/life success.

With the voices of those who comment playing a central role, this blog is intended to apply, explore, test, gather feedback, perspective and opinion on this subject and find out if work/life balance deserves further criticism and if work/life fusion can evolve into something that has genuine relevance to job seekers, employees and employers, today and into the future.

It is up to us, and by 'us' I mean anyone with an opinion (contrary or otherwise), to ask questions and to get the ball rolling. Please feel free to submit general comments or any specific work/career/balance related questions or issues. I will post more on the subject as regularly as possible and look forward to the conversations unfolding.

Here's to success in all our endeavours!

Paul