Work Hard, Love Less In Maryland?

Is having the title for the hardest working state in the union a drawback?

According to Zippia.com, a site that tracks millions of professionals using career maps across the country, Maryland (my hometown!) is the No. 1 state for hard working professionals.  This state was among others including Virginia (No. 2), and New Jersey (No. 3) that topped the list.  Their criteria included the total average hours worked, the total hours spent in commute to work, labor participation and other educational pursuits.  Overall, Northeastern states were found to be the hardest working states in the Union. 

Now, of course, you didn’t need some site to tell you this information!  But bear with me for a minute.  I found the most interesting part of this analysis is that as Marylanders, we spend 32 minutes to and from work each day (1 hour total), plus the 38.8 hours we spend actually at work.  Then when we’re not working, an average 20% of us are educating ourselves to find more work!

While I think this is good news for all of us hard working Marylanders, I often wonder how it impacts our love lives.  If we’re spending so much time at work, this means we’re definitely not spending it with our loved ones.  More time at work means less time at home.  And it turns out, it really doesn’t bode well on our relationships because according to the 2013 demographics data by towncharts.com, Maryland has a divorce rate of about 10% and the percentage of singles never married is 35%.  Overall, singles accounted for 51% of the population in the entire Maryland area.

And to my hopeless romantic singles, this really puts you at a disadvantage.  Because when you’re single, you’re not only trying to put food on the table but also find the love of your life.  You have dual duties.  As a professional coach, I generally find that the majority of my clients work a LOT!  Sure, they acknowledge they need to make their love lives a priority but doing something about it is a whole other issue.  This is especially the case when the cost of living is going up while our quality of life may be going down.

And there lies the conundrum.  What do we do?  It’s really all about balance.  Sure, it’s great as Marylanders to be recognized for all our hard work but as Steven Covey puts it, if we don’t prioritize our lives outside of work, we begin to “kill the goose that produces the egg”.  In other words, we need to take the time to enjoy having romantic, intimate relationships because they tend to be the foundation of our lives well into our older age.  This impacts our health as well.  When we’re in loving relationships, we feel better and we tend to do better in life.

In short, the purpose of this article isn’t to excite you nor depress you but to make you aware that working hard in our careers is a beautiful thing when we can balance it with our personal lives as well.  It’s all about the balance.  When we can take some time away from our busy schedules and enjoy the other parts of our lives, I believe we come into harmony with the universe and our souls within. 

Thanks for reading!

Please contact me at info@liveloveaspire.com for more information on my life/health/wellness related coaching services.