adding up to more than 360

many people successfully separate their personal and private lives; we've all heard the phrases 'i don't mix work and pleasure', 'not between 9 and 5', 'what happens in vegas...' i think this is a very pragmatic approach to life, especially nowadays, when it's so easy to bring your work home on your blackberry or just opening your e-mail (or the opposite, when we spend hours of work time on facebook).

on the other hand, trying to do this has given me many problems - 'work' issues accumulate during my off-time and eventually start to overwhelm me on one of those black mondays. or was it black sunday? also, family and friends tend to judge (my) character based on the face value of my relaxation time. such common questions are 'don't you feel like doing some work?', 'wow, you've got so much free time', etc. i'm sure you've had that before and can relate.

it's particularly hard to explain this ideology to people who haven't the faintest idea of the separation between the two. for many people i know, work and play are just part and parcel of life - a duality of everyday existence such that, i've noticed, has caused the quality of both to be mediocre and, in my opinion, lacking as an overview. but, to each his own, i'm sure some people perform better with the adherence to such separation, whereas others don't, and all i ask is that one thinks about which results in what before jumping on the 'streaming movies at work' bandwagon because allocating work time for play is the other side of the coin that is 'once in a while checking my work e-mail on my iphone because it makes me seem like an important person in social circles.' or you could be altruistic and actually assume that person is truly compensating.