Arthur C. Brooks argues that work and life should enhance each other, not compete. True integration requires intrinsic satisfaction from both, purposeful leisure that includes learning and relationships, and rejecting both workaholism and the belief that work is life's purpose.
What we need very integrally is to understand how my work makes my non-work better and my non-work makes my work better. That's work-life integration where there's intrinsic satisfaction from the work and the non-work, where we're not prone to workaholism or workism and where we can integrate the two. Perhaps you've never thought about it in this particular way, but that means, by the way, that if all you ever do is work and you neglect your relationships, you're doing it wrong. If you don't have any sense of leisure where leisure is a productive thing, you're spending your time actually learning things they don't pay you for, deepening your spiritual life, cultivating your relationships, you're doing it wrong is what it comes down to. It's all part of this seamless garment, getting done what needs to get done where everything makes everything else better.
