I am surprised and amused to find this question as the starting point of this page, as this is the question I have asked students and mentees over the past 15 years - do you live to work or do you work to live? Based on their answers and how they identify their own values about what gives their lives meaning, we discuss potential directions, work, and life decisions that they might consider as a result. There is never one answer, and a straight and clear path is never identified. The conversation often results in a new journey, in risks taken, and in reflection on the path less travelled.

I live to work. I love work. My mother is always nagging me to stop and smell the roses. To me, work is roses, and I am constantly investigating the rose bushes to try and discover why they are so fragrant. I find meaning in learning and meaning in work. Meaning in knowing how the world is, how it came to be this way, and how it could be (in all possible incarnations of "could" that I might imagine) depending on what we, as its inhabitants, do to/with ourselves and each other.

Currently, I reflect. I'm reading Einstein's Dreams (Alan Lightman), a fiction book that engages deep and interesting thoughts about time, space, and the meaning(s) of life. The finest point of the book is that, around the explorations of space and time, we see a young Einstein, engaged in his thinking and learning such that he hardly notices the day to day things. He, too (in the book, for certain) was living to work. Not looking after himself, but instead looking after the meaning he might make through engaging with the world.