Work-Life balance

Sometimes I just don't see how I could one day achieve a good work-life balance. It's actually more than just work-life balance, if it was only 2-dimensional, it would be easier.

At work, I feel I could use another 2-3 full days at the end of the week, or another 6-8 hours at the end of each day, to achieve all the projects I'd like to complete or participate in. There's the day to day tasks, some longer term projects, and then a lot of other projects and initiatives that I'd like to be a part of, that have to be outside of my day job. What if my day job is already taking more than 40 hours a week? Work more? How much more can I work if I want to stand a chance at some sort of work-life balance?

In the life part of "work-life balance", there's actually a lot of things that can be included. For me, there's family (direct, extended and I don't even have kids yet!), sports (running, skiing, biking, swimming, triathlons, etc.), hobbies (learn german, play the trumpet), arts (listen to classical music, go to the Opera, the local Symphony orchestra), and then entertainment, because sometimes I feel like watching a movie or even just watch TV, although it really at the bottom of my list of priorities.

And between work and life, I should also be taking time to develop myself at work, aka I should study for my CCIE, read TCP/IP books, watch hours of VoDs, mainly on already very busy personal time.

The result of constant time crunch is a feeling that I'm always behind at work, always catching up. It's also a sense of non-achievement in personal life, like not spending enough time with family, not pursuing my full potential in triathlons and having to decide that certain things will just stay on the back burner until days start having 30 hours and weeks become 10 days long! For example, my trumpet along with my passion for classical music and live performance has been on a back burner pretty much since I started working.

I guess I just can't get them all, but I'll keep on dreaming to do all these things, because these dreams are what's keeping me motivated to do it all.

I'll keep on dreaming to run a sub-3 hours marathon,
I'll keep on dreaming to one day qualify for Kona,
I'll keep on dreaming to one day play the trumpet in a professional orchestra,
I'll keep on dreaming to one day have my own business,
I'll keep on dreaming to retire at 40 years old,
I'll keep on dreaming to travel the world,
...

In the mean time, it's almost 10pm, and I'm dreaming about eating dinner!