Bijan Sabet

The balancing act

I think I’ve written about this subject before - the balancing act between work life and family life.

For those of you with spouses, kids, partners…I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

It’s not easy to have a balanced life. I’m not even sure such a thing exists. But what I do know is that its about making priorities and choices. Priorities & choices. Rinse. Repeat.

While I have my doubts that a truly “balanced life” is consistently attainable , I think we are all working on the balancing act. You love your family more than anything and you love your work.

Earlier this week I was talking to a friend of mine that said he would have moved to the bay area years ago but his family wanted to stay east. His priority was his family. With hard work and enormous talent he’s made a wonderful life here in the northeast. It’s all worked out just fine.

We moved back to the east coast after a decade in the bay area for the same reason. I love SF - but we decided in 2001 to raise our young family near our parents, siblings and cousins.

In many ways from a career standpoint that was tricky. I didn’t know anyone in Boston when I moved here. My whole social & professional network was tied to folks with 415, 650 and 408 area codes. But we made a plan and went for it.

And that worked out just fine. In fact, if I didn’t move back I don’t think I would have been a VC (although who knows) and I wouldn’t have been able to meet all the wonderful people that I work with and count on as friends & colleagues in Boston and NYC.

I don’t know where this post is going but I felt the need to jot it down.

The balancing act is something we are all going through I suspect and it’s good to remember why we do what we do.