Y Talk: No Need to Separate Work and Play by Justin Rose

As with any other Saturday morning, I started my day with a cup of coffee as I settled in to read some emails. I make it a point to read and respond to emails over the weekend when possible. I actually find this to be rewarding. I am always amazed by the responses I get from parents or members when they hear back from me on a Saturday morning or Sunday night. It is usually a response of genuine surprise, but also a response of overwhelming gratitude. It never really seems like work to me, just more of an ongoing conversation. I have never really been able to “shut off” from work and make a complete separation from work to personal life. I admire those that can. I often think my life might be simpler if I could make that separation, but fundamentally I think our work is an extension of ourselves in more ways than one. It just so happened that while I was checking my email this past weekend, I found this amazing quote buried in one of the hundreds of junk emails we all get.

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their mind and their body, their education and their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which. They simply pursue their vision of excellence at whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing. To them, they are always doing both.” – James A. Michener (U.S. novelist and short-story writer)

It really caught me off guard. I actually read the quote several times. Here I was, reading emails from work on a Saturday morning, not begrudgingly, but taking joy in knowing that I was hopefully going to pleasantly surprise some folks with a response before Monday. I just found the quote to be so enlightening, and refreshing. It seems there are a million articles about finding the right life/work balance and how there needs to be a yin and yang effect when describing work life and personal life. But in reality there can only be one you, so why should your work be different than your play? I have found that those that are the most successful in life are not the ones that can separate work and life, but those that can combine their life and their work into their life’s work.

-by Justin Rose, Associate Executive Director​