Putting the work in
THE BEAR is an excellent examination of the eternal struggle for a career/life balance
I recently finished watching the second season of THE BEAR, FX/Hulu’s award-winning drama about a Chicago chef attempting to reinvent his brother’s dive eatery into a fancy-ass fine dining restaurant.
The show is, of course, very good. Remarkably so. The second season’s batch of episodes features some of the best-crafted chunks of storytelling I’ve seen in a long time, full of profound character studies, exquisitely shot cinema, and a perfect balance of emotions and angst. Jeremy Allen White, of the soulful eyes and perfectly coiffed hair, is like a human roller coaster - taking audiences through the ups and downs of his inner psychological turmoil at such dizzying speeds the show should almost require a vomit bag.
The show is frequently very tense at times - with lots of the episodes’ drama coming from volcanic eruptions from within the bowels of a kitchen. Sharp knives and sharp words lead to puckered butts as audiences watch the kitchen crew navigate everything from too many customers to too few customers. For me, though, the second season’s biggest gut punches came as White’s character Carmy attempted to figure out the seemingly unexistence recipe for finding a balance between being the best possible version of yourself professionally and carving out time for personal happiness and fulfillment outside of work.
From the time I was 27 until the time I was 36, I was obsessed with my job. I woke up and went to work and I wouldn’t stop working until I passed out - usually sometime well past midnight. When I wasn’t actually working, I was still thinking about work. My job was the northern light that guided my every action and every decision. I didn’t take vacations for fear of getting behind at work. I was at my job every night and every weekend and most holidays too. It wasn’t even the fun parts of my job that demanded my focus - I spent hours creating mind-numbingly detailed busy-work for myself so that I could preemptively consider every aspect of my job and responsibilities - so afraid I was of having something slip through the cracks.
During that decade, I didn’t date, I didn’t have many friends and I let my health crumble like a dried-out bar of deodorant. My personal life withered and flaked away until I realized that every notable aspect of my personality was a reflected prism of my career.
And then COVID happened.
Furloughed and left to figure out who I was without my job, I went about reassembling my life. I finally made time for my hobbies and my health and - most importantly - my happiness. I rediscovered my passion for writing, I lost a lot of weight and I started dating a wonderful woman. Even as my job started to ramp back up again as the world inched closer to something resembling normal, I made sure to carve out time every day for my non-work priorities. I was determined not to let go of the things I had created for myself outside of work.
Here’s the truth, though - I used to be a lot better at my job when I was dedicated exclusively to it. I wish I could say that I found time for both my personal life and my professional life to thrive, but that’s just not the case. You can’t have it all. Gone were all the amazing media-grabbing events I used to program in Houston, poof went the detailed understanding of analytics and trends that I used to know innately from constantly studying numbers and charts. I still do a really good job at what I do, but it doesn’t come as easy and I don’t go above and beyond the call of duty as often. To be perfectly honest, I’m just not as proud as often as I used to be, professionally.
Is that a bad thing, though? I’m proud of other things. I’m proud of the relationships I have with the people I love, I’m proud of the art I’ve created and I’m proud of the experiences I’ve had outside of work. I’m even still proud of the work I do professionally, it’s just not that splashy, ego-stroking pride that used to have me chisel a personality out of my professional life.
The truth is, you can’t have it all. You can’t be the best at work and the best at life - you have to make choices. But the thing that isn’t a choice - the thing that I see too many people miss - is that you just have to be the best. Whatever you choose to do - whether it’s work or your personal life, you have to give it your all. If you’re half-assing your work life, you can’t also half-ass your personal life. And vice-versa - you can’t have zero personal life and also flounce your way through your career. You need to approach everything you do with your utmost sincerity and drive and ambition.
Life is short, our time is fleeting and we’re put on this Earth to make a difference - if not in other people’s lives, at least in our own. THE BEAR is about a group of people trying to create something amazing in the culinary landscape, and they put the hours and hard work and blood, sweat and tears into what is needed to make that dream come to life Whatever your dream is - and you must have a dream - you need to do the same. I see so many people in the world content to coast in every aspect of their life - like they are waiting for the plot to kick in. Unfortunately, if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re already in Act II, if not Act III. There’s no time to waste!
Work was my dream. Now my dream is a bit more complicated and a bit more encompassing, but it’s still the North Star that I base all my decisions on. I still give a hundred and ten percent to my life, it’s just now that my life means work, my relationships, my writing, my health, and my happiness. It means so many things, each equally important at different times of the day. 110 percent carved into five chunks is 22 percent per chunk - but I’m giving every ounce of that 22 percent to that chunk of my life as I’m engaged in it.
THE BEAR is a tense AF television show but what’s even tenser is realizing you’ve wasted a lifetime phoning it in. Maybe you can’t be the best possible version of yourself professionally while simultaneously being the best possible version of yourself personally, but you can' sure as hell be the best possible version of the person who’s working a fifty-hour-a-week job but still makes time to curl up on the couch with somebody you love and watch a great show.