I once believed that achieving work-life balance meant drawing strict boundaries—keeping work confined to office hours and reserving my personal time entirely for myself. If I spent eight hours working, I felt the remaining six should belong solely to me.

However, since I worked alongside my husband, who is also the director of gradus, the line between work and personal life became increasingly blurred. Even after leaving the office, work often followed us home. The more this happened, the more I felt the need to protect my personal time—even when it wasn’t truly necessary. I became overly sensitive about carving out alone time, and ironically, this self-imposed restriction only added to my stress.

I even ignored good ideas that came to me outside of working hours, convinced it wasn’t the right time to think about work. But when I actually needed those ideas, I couldn’t recall them. This inefficiency made me question whether my approach to work was truly effective. The reality is that work occupies a significant part of my life, and my attempt to keep it completely separate was both contradictory and unrealistic. I spend more than half of my day working, and through that work, I continue to discover different facets of myself. The sense of accomplishment I gain helps fill gaps in my self-perception. I’ve never considered myself particularly career-driven, yet in my profession, I find myself constantly striving for better results and greater success.

While I influence my work, my work also shapes me, often steering my life in unexpected directions. I’ve come to realize that work and life are not opposing forces but interconnected parts of a whole. When they exist in harmony, both my career and personal life feel more fulfilling. In the end, they merge to shape the person I am.