What is Work-Life Balance? | Fr. Jacob-Bertrand Janczyk & Fr. Patrick Briscoe
August 1, 2024
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: And this is Father Jacob-Bertrand Janczyk.
Fr. Patrick: Welcome to Godsplaining. Thanks to all who support us. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a monthly donation to us on Patreon. Be sure to like and subscribe to Godsplaining wherever you listen to your podcasts. How far, Father Jacob-Bertrand have you ever ridden in one ride on your bike?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: 138 miles.
Fr. Patrick: Yikes. I think maybe one day I drove 138 miles (laughs). How long did that take?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It was like just under seven and a half hours.
Fr. Patrick: Oh my gosh. It’s a huge ride. Where you just broken by it? How did you recover?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: No, it was fine actually. I mean, it was long, but it was all right. Yeah, you’re not going all out, you know, kind of thing. So, but it’s a long day on the bike.
Fr. Patrick: Wait, so what was your pace?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: I think we were just around like 19 miles an hour. Yeah.
Fr. Patrick: That’s no joke. That’s not messing around.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It was just two of us, so you get not a ton of rest. Yeah. It was cool.
Fr. Patrick: Incredible. And it didn’t, you weren’t just like broken for a week?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: No. I had a work out the next day. (laughing) Yeah. It was good. Yeah.
Fr. Patrick: Well, I was thinking of this because that ride… a hundred and…
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: 38.
Fr. Patrick: 38 ride, I was pausing to make sure I got it right, 164…2,664 miles, which is the longest ride Fr. Jacob-Bertrand’s ever done. 10,000 miles, right? That ride, 138 miles is a substantial commitment and I think there are a lot of, there are a lot of people that hear something like that that would not spend that much time doing something.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: I wouldn’t recommend it, yeah.
Fr. Patrick: No, and I mean, not every circumstance of life affords the same options, but I think generally as Americans we have this abhorrence towards that much of a commitment to something that’s just for fun.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah.
Fr. Patrick: Which that basically was. Now before we get too far into this episode, which is going to be on work-life balance, I do have one thing that I want to share. For our priest listeners, I want to invite you to consider attending the conferences for priests that are organized by the St. Paul Center. For two decades, the St. Paul Center has been training Catholics to read the scriptures from the heart of the Church. And in a particular way, they offer a very unique, they offer a very special opportunity for priests to engage the scripture during annual conferences. So coming up in 2025, there will be three conferences for priests where priests can join scholars like Dr. Scott Hahn and John Burgsma for four days at Biblical formation fraternity and spiritual development. It’s a really great opportunity, which is why we’re mentioning it on the podcast. So if you’re a priest, if you are a priest, consider attending one of the conferences in 2025, you can visit saintpaulcenter.com/priest to learn more or to sign up today. If you are a layperson, consider giving a priest in your life the gift of spiritual renewal. Tell him about the conferences or consider sponsoring his registration. You can go to SaintPaulcenter.com/priest to learn more. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: That sponsoring is a good idea, especially for a parish gift to a priest for his annual retreat or that sort of thing. Listen, we all benefit. Father goes away. Father gets a break. You get a break from Father. Father, hopefully, will be enriched. His preaching will be enriched. And your experience of the Mass will be enriched. Win – win.
Fr. Patrick: That’s what I was just gonna say. If you want to do something about those homilies that you find lackluster this is the thing you can do about them.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Just don’t tell him we said that when you send him.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah. Perfect, okay, so again, this episode is about work life balance, you know, we talked about Fr. Jacob-Bertrand riding 10,478 miles on his bike in one day. It was amazing.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: So fast.
Fr. Patrick: What do you think, Father, are some of the principles we need to dive into? I mentioned a kind of reticence that Americans have to enter into any kind of serious leisure. But I think there’s probably more basic questions that need to be asked even before that.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, I think, well, even like the title or that phrase, “work life balance”, begins the conversation, right? Because there ought to be a balance between work and life. And they’re not the same thing. And they ought not be the same thing. Like, our life is not our work and our work ought not be our life. They’re obviously intertwined and there are times when it might feel like all I do is work or you know like fine okay but like the reality is, is if we look at even like let’s look at like even a basic tenant of our Faith, like there is a day of rest. Built into who we are, programmatic into who we are. Like we’re made for that rest. So we have to approach life in that sense where, yeah, we work, we work hard, that sort of thing, but there’s also a time for us to rest and be invested in other things besides our job or the work that we do. And that’s an important thing, not just because it’s trying to like achieve some sort of like Renaissance man status, I can do all these different things, but because we need it to be happy and healthy. And I think that’s something, and we’ll probably talk about this, but in this sort of modern age, the contemporary age, where like email is on cell phones and blah, it’s much harder to not live above the shop or in the shop. But that means it’s all the more important that we be vigilant about finding and maintaining and creating these habits of balance there.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah. I think yeah, I think this is such a great point, right? You’re talking about delineating where work ends and where what belongs to the rest of life, you know, not that work isn’t separate from life, it’s all one, but what belongs to our free time and what belongs to our job, right? And it’s really a horrific thing to be sitting on the beach with your family on vacation and be answering emails, you know, just don’t do it, it’s a bad thing, it’s not restful. You have to find time to actually unplug and put an away message on and not pay attention to what’s going on on your phone. I think it’s absolutely key. And in my life as a priest, one way I experienced how dramatic this could be when you get some structural boundaries in place happened when we moved the friars who had been living in a parish directory at St. Pius V into the Priory at Providence College. And at the end of the day that meant I could walk, and it wasn’t far the walk across the street, across the street, down to the Priory from the parish from St. Pius V parish, but once I could walk from the parish to the priory, I found myself able to actually disengage. You know, it’s very clear.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Rather than living right next to the parish.
Fr. Patrick: Exactly. Exactly. Because when you live in the rectory, the phone is going to ring. There are going to be knocks at the door and that’s just part of it. And it’s something that a lot of priests really struggle to navigate. But when we made that structural change, I realized just how big an impact that makes. And I realized how important it is and what I could have been doing to put up better structures in my life apart from just the physical change. So not every priest is gonna have the benefit of a physical change the way that I had it, but you can put structures in my life apart from just the physical change. So not a brief is going to have the benefit of a physical change the way that I had it, but you can put structures in your life and every person can do this where you put structures in your life that are intentional to delineate again where work ends and what belongs to the rest of your life. But that was huge for me. And you experience this a little bit right now in Hanover just the way that you’re living situations.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, well it’s certainly different. Like when I was our vocation director for four years, I literally lived one floor above my office. Like my cell, my bedroom was one floor up. Like the stairwell was right outside my door to my bedroom. And then the stairwell went straight down to my office. Like my commute to work was literally 11 seconds. That meant that especially if I had a big checklist to do or a lot of tasks to accomplish, in the evening or whatever, I would, the sense of guilt and the pain of like, I could be working a little bit more. It was very hard not to give in to that temptation just to go back down to the office, kind of thing. Now, in Hanover, I don’t live at the rectory at the parish. I live at Aquinas House, which is where our campus ministry center is. So Father Timothy, who’s our chaplain lives above the shop, but I don’t. So I have this very clear, like, what I go home, like I go home. And when the workday is over, I don’t answer emails. And I don’t answer text messages unless there are emergency calls, but there’s a particular way to, you know, I’m contacted for that. And I think that this is like one of the first points that I want to bring up. There’s always going to be a temptation to like work harder to like have a higher what place and like the rat race of like making more being, of like getting that promotion, that sort of thing. But for me, it’s a question of like, well, what constitutes my happiness and my flourishing as a human being? Is it being promoted and getting more money? Maybe that contributes. I’m not gonna say never, like, sure. Okay, fine, but like ultimately, or is it living a life that’s balanced? And I think in this conversation, the work-life balance is we have to acknowledge, or we should be more willing to acknowledge the fact that our work day has boundaries. Like, we should not be working during our lunch hour. And when we go home, the work day is over. Unless you’re getting paid for it. Unless you’re getting paid for it. There’s this, like, there’s this–
Fr. Patrick: And even then.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, I know.
Fr. Patrick: Do you really need to be putting in the extra hours?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Correct. Yeah, there’s this woman on Instagram, and she has these reels, and I don’t know her name or her handle, so I couldn’t tell you, but it’s like this kind of workplace, like how, it’s like kind of this ironic, was that satirical kind of thing. And this, she always has these things where like, she’s like the work day, and like I start work at nine, and I end work at five, and I get an hour off, and that’s kind workday and like I’m not working extra unless like I’m compensated extra. You know, like that sort of thing. It’s like I think we ought to be more willing to say that. I don’t think the working like 80 hour week, an 80 hour work week is a healthy or good thing. And I think we’ll talk to this about this too and I’ll stop my rant, but like the sort of blending of personal life and work life, whereas like am I at work right now? I’m at home, but I’m working or I’m at work, but like I think those are, I think those things should be separate. We should live, they should be separate worlds in which we engage.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah, as I was articulating that, you know, the experience I had, as a parish priest, I realized this would resonate with a lot of people who work from home. You know, we need to figure out how to set up these boundaries in their own life. I think it’s really important. I want to echo your condemnation of this temptation to continue to put in the extra hours trying to get ahead, which is at the end of the day, just materialist. It’s just materialist. If it’s not materialist, it’s even worthless. Because if the reason you’re putting in all this extra work isn’t for more money, it means that you’re deriving your self worth, your meaning, the purpose of your life, from your work. And that has to be condemned and is deeply, deeply problematic. Because of course, the greatest things in life are not work and workplace achievements. And you see this all the time as a priest at funerals, where the greatest things in life are things like friendship and family. And those are the things that you’re sacrificing when you’re choosing work, because at the end of the day, your time can only be given to one or the other.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah.
Fr. Patrick: So where is it going and why? And if it’s going to, if you’re continuing to work for more money, okay, but I sure hope your family really needs it. And if it’s not just about money, you need to ask yourself what, what is it that I’m driving from this? And if it’s your sense of self worth, we got a huge issue.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. And I know you’re not saying this and it shouldn’t be thought that you’re saying this at work is a bad thing or should, but it’s about this question of balance, of course. Right, of this balance, yeah.
Fr. Patrick: Good, so take us through and let’s shift a little bit to what the life side of the equation looks like. What does it mean to find something that’s genuinely rejuvenating?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, I think it’s helpful to kind of point out a misunderstanding first. And I think, especially like for me, I mean, and you know me well enough, like I’m very type A, I’m very like.
Fr. Patrick: Wait, hold on, we need to stop the episode, we need to clear that. I’m, you know, I just need to, I just need to, I just need to recover from this great self revelation that Father Jacob-Bertrand is type A. Okay, go on.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: So like type A, I like organized, get things done early. Like that’s, you know, like work harder, but like fine, I’m always like that’s. And so I say that not as like a pat on my back because I think it often like has a lot of faults and pitfalls into that sort of whether it’s work ethic or like expectations for work in this sort of thing. But I say that because I think for me and I think for a lot of people that when we talk about work life balance, when we’re talking about the life part, the immediate assumption is lazy or unproductive or waste of time. I could be working. Like I was talking about like, oh, I have these, like the evening I was living above- like I just walked down a flat of stairs and go back to work. Like, and if I’m not doing that, then I’m wasting time. You know, or like this is useless or unproductive. And in some sense, the life stuff, at least compared to work, is a waste of time. If it’s only compared to getting work done, right? If the end goal is only to accomplish these work-oriented tasks and you’re not doing that, then you are wasting time if work is the defining factor. But as you’ve already said, it’s not. You know, like our life isn’t infused with meaning and purpose and fulfillment because of our jobs. So the life side of things, I think, yeah, perhaps a waste of time in a particular sense. But I think that there too is a place to develop and grow as a human being. With respect to the time we spend with family and friends, I know we were talking about a hobby, what we do, what we invest in. These things that picking up, whether it’s family, friends, hobby, et cetera, things that challenge us too, I think our hobby should challenge us. I mean, we might have very relaxing kind of things, but like people like to work out, like to exercise people like to build, you know, like great. And then also just like leisure, like just resting, being rejuvenated, and then spending time with the Lord. You know, these, these areas that are not work, but are essential to who we are as human beings have to be, have to be pursued with at least an equal, if not greater kind of vigor, I think.
Fr. Patrick: I, we’ve talked about the elsewhere, but I just seen an issue a couple quick, condemnatory statements here as authoritative anathema’s from the podcast. So scrolling Instagram and watching Netflix do not count as restorative recreation – not what we were talking about.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Also, doing things so as to post a picture of it on Instagram does not count as life balance.
Fr. Patrick: Yes! No kidding. No. I’m so glad you mentioned that too because it seems like people want to experience something just so they can tell someone they have that experience.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yep. And tell people who couldn’t give a crap about their lives.
Fr. Patrick: Which is a really horrific way to live. No wonder people are sad.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yep.
Fr. Patrick: So the other day I went with a friar to Mount Vernon, to George Washington’s ancestral home, right? His lovely, his lovely home. And what we experienced there was fantastic because we entered into something that I would not otherwise have chosen. So we got to watch a bunch of reenactors because it was the Revolutionary War weekend. Would I have ever chosen to go to a revolutionary war reenactment knowing that that was what was on the menu for the Mount Vernon visit? Probably not. Not just like out of hand. And that’s not to rock, it’s not to knock reenactors. It’s just to say, like, it’s nothing I’ve ever done. So it’s not something that I would have wanted to do. Yeah. You know, with the same way. But I did want to go to Mount Vernon, and I wanted to enjoy it with another friar. Who is not American. So I wanted to talk to him about why America is the greatest country in the world all day. So visiting Mount Vernon’s is a convenient way to do that. Okay, so we’re there. And out before us, you know, it was this entire field of very dedicated re-enactors, people who were extremely passionate about learning the historical past and about sharing it with you and about telling you about it. I loved it. I had an absolute blast. The battle was so cool. As they were firing muskets and cannon, the sounds and smells of it, all the smoke, the whole thing was just so engaging. And the people themselves were wonderful because they wanted to invite, they were inviting questions from you. They wanted you to enjoy their passion, which was Revolutionary War history the same way that you did. I thought it was absolutely incredible and it was so restorative. It just took me completely out of the rhythm of the day and allowed me to get just caught up in my time chatting with my friend with this other friar and with all these other people we met about this, about this interest, this passion that so many other people have that, but that is not really my own properly. So I was introduced into this marvelous world that I loved. It was just, it was just so much fun. And at the end of the day it was so restorative. So I think it can be tempting to think about the kinds of things that make up life and say, okay, you know, we need, we need a hobby and then we have to set benchmarks to do the hobby or, you know, I’m off of work now. It’s time to do this home improvement project. Well, you can do those things, but do they, do they really produce delight? And do they really give you a sense of satisfaction? I think those are great questions to be asking oneself about the things that we’re doing on the weekend critically, you know to critically examine what is the work on the weekend to see if that balance is really in place in our lives.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: There’s this skit I think it’s a skit or some things this satirical thing I don’t know if it’s like SNL or Babylon Bee I can’t remember but this sort of thing where like at the setup is like, Monday back at work and they’re like asking, what did you do over the weekend? Like adult, like the greatest thing for adults is like, I did nothing. I did nothing all weekend. And like, it’s funny, it’s funny, but like, it raises the question of like, is that a good thing? Like, is it a good thing that our lives are set up such that like we get to our weekend and like we are so burnt out from work that the only thing we want to do is nothing. I would say no. I don’t think that’s a good way to have our lives structured. That like we are literally so burnt out that the only thing we can bring ourselves to do is like nothing. And that’s glorious. Because think of all the things we’re missing out on and all that. And two, I think another kind of metric by which we might be able to consider or do some self-reflection on how is my work-life balance, is when somebody asks, what do you do in your spare time? Versus what do you do at work? I could talk about work all the time, what I’m doing, what I’m complaining about, who’s doing great, who’s a pain in the butt, like, projects that I’m going, well, you know, like I can go on and on about the things I’m not getting done, about the things that are, you know, that interrupted my work. Like I can go, but then like, well, what did you do over the weekend? Or like, what are you interested in? Like, what are you reading? What are your like? Cricket cricket, you know like if that’s the case, that also seems to be a bit like that’s an answer there where like the balance is being missed, and again, we’re not saying like don’t work and only play but like… balance is what we’re after.
Fr. Patrick: If you’re a man, you should at least say, “I watched some golf on Sunday afternoon.”
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: I don’t watch golf.
Fr. Patrick: That’s the minimum though.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Oh, I see.
Fr. Patrick: That’s like the bare minimum. You should at least say that. And then with that’s like, that’s like, there’s like nothing and then there’s watching golf on Sunday afternoon.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: When the Master’s was on…totally throwing Father Timothy with whom I live under the bus. When the master’s was on, he had golf on, he’s a golfer. But he had golf on TV and his laptop. He was like double watching. I was like, I can’t, I had to leave. I was like, I can’t do this. Sorry, I’m gonna go bike in a circle or something.
Fr. Patrick: You didn’t, you didn’t politely clap at it.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: That’s right, no, yeah, yeah, no.
Fr. Patrick: Give him a little golf applause. What do you think someone’s realizing that these priorities are off in his or her life? Like someone is saying, I know I don’t have the balance here, but I just can’t stop because for some people work is like a drug. I just can’t stop. What do you tell that person?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: A couple things, I think. I think first, I think first, there has to take baby steps, because it’s true that we build up habits of living and habits of working. And how do we begin to write this a little bit? Well, we might have to just take small steps. And that might simply be like, I don’t know after like lunch break. I don’t answer emails. I just go to lunch. I get away from my desk at lunch. I don’t eat lunch at my desk. You know, like just these little things that we can do that. And I know like I recognize too that like for a lot of people work, if you’re if you’re not in the grind and you’re not doing more than the person sitting next to you or that kind of thing, that’s something you have to weigh out in your own life. But I think little tweaks is a helpful way to start because if you’re just like, I’m never going to do X, Y, or Z again, even doing that, that’s not going to happen. You know, so these small tweaks. I also think it’s worth recognizing, and this is less of a sort of action step and more of a mental shift. Like the passion that is poured into or like the vigor that is poured into work is not just something we’re able to do as work, like somebody at work, you know, somebody who is, who gets excited about this and like kind of geeks out about this part of work and you know, whatever, like that’s part of who you are as a man or a woman and that sort of character and devotion and like excitement can be transferred and applied to something that like is enjoyable and not just work, you know what I mean? So like if you’re, I don’t know, trying to like if you’re a big golfer, that sort of thing and you work all the time, but you want a golf more, it’s like, well, you can invest more in golf because you’re somebody who knows how to invest in things. And that’s, again, finding that balance. So it’s not as if our talents and our gifts can only be applied to just work. I think that’s important to recognize.
Fr. Patrick: I think because of, and this is part of the social media effect or the social media thing you certainly at, uh, exasperates it, but I think that we live in generalities, and I think people, people look at the horizon of their life and they just see a bunch of wants and they’re sort of vague and they never target going after one, one or two things in a clear way, right? So people that are successful, people that are happy know what they want and they go about they go about seeking after it in a in a methodical in a clear way, okay? So I would say to someone who is asking like oh, okay, I know I know that my life is a little bit off balance, what I do about it? I would say to that person, what are your real priorities? Like sit down and write them out. And look at what is achievable and actionable and realistic for your life, and then figure out a plan to accomplish it. You know, so if you say, you know, I want to, I want to have more recreation in my life, then put it in your calendar and figure out what you’re going to do for 15 minutes, for 30 minutes that’s going to help you rest and be really intentional about what you’re going to do with that time and how it’s going to help you cultivate other skills or other desires that you have. So if you want to play the piano, book 15 minutes of piano time in your life every day, and just start doing it. But make that a clear priority and don’t, don’t allow it to sort of exist as an Instagram account you follow, but allow it to really make a demand on you, allow it to really be part of, to be part of the way you think about your life, to think about your time.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. I think the last thing that I like,’s on for me is this like social media thing. It’s like it’s also worth asking like can you do something or can you do things and not have to post about them? Can they just be like good in themselves, in themselves? Whether it’s spending time with people going up late like do you need that sort of posting? Can we just invest in that balance?
Fr. Patrick: Is it enough for you to do it? Well friends, I think that brings us to the end of today’s episode on work-life balance. Thank you for tuning in for this episode of Godsplaining. Be sure to if you have not already, follow us on Facebook, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, now called X and Instagram. Like, subscribe and leave a five star review. We love the reviews of our show. Please write fun ones, and we’ll share them. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. If you’d like to donate to the podcast through Patreon, follow the link in the description. You can also follow the links in the description to shop Godsplaining merch and to get information on upcoming Godsplaining events. Above all friends, we ask that you would pray for us. And we want you to know that we are praying for you. God bless.