The typical week doesn't work for a lot of us.

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Daily Five, an experimental podcast by Aurooba, where I talk about something for five minutes. So let's get to it, shall we? The core tension of the typical week is that it runs on the assumption that we work really hard from Monday to Friday and then spend the weekend relaxing. Now, I haven't done the research on this, but I have a feeling that the standard stems from a way of life that isn't as widely applicable as it used to be.

[00:00:38] The idea that you would work for five days a week and then relax for two only works if you have someone at home taking care of everything else for you. Someone else who takes care of all the other things you need in your life while you go to work five days a week and then relax two days a week. This works pretty well in situations where [00:01:00] there is a single breadwinner responsible for going out and making money, and a primary homemaker whose job it is to take care of almost everything else, meal prep, home maintenance, arranging a social calendar, childcare, et cetera.

[00:01:15] That's not to say that the breadwinner doesn't help around the house or that the primary homemaker never takes on a job. It's just that it's not their primary job. You know? Looked at objectively without the lens of the real world applied, this is a perfectly sensible approach to tackle the myriad duties and upkeep of daily life.

[00:01:37] But nowadays, it's pretty common to have a dual income household, a home where both parts of a couple work a job. Often in these situations, the bulk of the home making duties often fall to one person, despite the logical reasoning that if both people earn, then both people should help around the house. I'm not here to argue the [00:02:00] socioeconomic politics of that.

[00:02:01] It's simply the reality we currently live in, and even in the best of relationships, there is a touch of inequity in the division of duties. So given that this is a reality for a lot of people, how can we deal with that? I don't have a final answer because like all the episodes of The Daily 5, this is also an unfinished exploration of a thought or idea that I've been ruminating on or trying out.

[00:02:29] But here's what I've been thinking. Maybe we need to stop compartmentalizing so much. Maybe we need to approach it all from a more blended perspective. Now, since I work from home and have worked from home, my entire adult life, my life is a bit more blended. However, my spouse's life is far less blended because he works a more traditional job.

[00:02:54] Because of this, I recently realized that my life is modeled in a more compartmentalized [00:03:00] fashion in order to sync our lives together, which makes any adjustment I might wanna make to my life immediately more complex. Other than getting a different job, how do you weave the professional, personal, and social parts of your life together and share it with other people if the majority of your day or theirs on most of your days or theirs is dictated by a rigid structure, not entirely within your own control, based on a way of working that doesn't fit your situation?

[00:03:31] Like I said, I don't have a final answer. I'm not even sure I have AN answer. The 4 burners theory banks on the idea that, uh, you can leave two or three burners on maintenance mode, on low heat, while you crank up the intensity on one or two burners. This is a clear idea. What's less clear is what maintenance mode or low heat looks like.

[00:03:58] What does it look like to put [00:04:00] your social life or your personal life on maintenance mode? Again, more questions? But these questions feel increasingly key to crafting a well lived life. So here I am ruminating. In some ways, this whole podcast has been an exploration of this central theme, the pursuit of a well lived life, doing something of meaning with our time and energy.

[00:04:26] So, I want to explore this a little more over the next few days and think out loud about some of the practical changes that could move the needle on this very core, almost systemic issue that a lot of us, including me, find ourselves dealing with. But for now, this is what I've been thinking about.

[00:04:48] Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.