Clean water and work-life
December 23rd, 2009 | by Leanne
My work-life happiness is off the chart this week…for some obvious reasons
And one not as obvious.
I am lucky. I talk about work-life balance for a living. Why does that make me lucky? Because if work-life balance is my biggest problem in life, I have a lot fewer worries than so many others. I ate yesterday, I had my family around me and it never crossed my mind to wonder if the water I was drinking was safe to drink. Others are not so lucky. So I support the Friends of Penyem – a group striving to bring clean water systems into West African villages where the needs and health issues are most dire. Russell Glass of Bizo introduced me to the cause when we both worked at ZoomInfo. As I love to travel and have seen the developing world up close…I couldn’t imagine not being involved.
Yesterday, while I and my family frolicked (truly…frolicked) Jason Sadler from IWearYourShirt.com was busy working hard to raise awareness and funds to build at least one more well in the Gambia. I’m not sure when the results will be in…but I can’t wait to see how his, Russ’s and my networks came through to make that happen. Let’s continue giving today…$1 or $1000 – all is welcome and will be truly appreciated by people who have no idea what a wonderful life we, who complain/strive/struggle with work-life balance, really have.
Happy, healthy, balanced holidays to all!
3 Comments
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Chris Ferdinandi, Leanne Chase. Leanne Chase said: Clean drinking water – and #worklife happiness – new post: http://bit.ly/8TI84p [...]
[...] Original post: Clean drinking water and work-life | Connecting Career and Life [...]
Last January, my wife and I visited our son who lives in a remote village in Senegal through the U.S. Peace Corps. He lives in a hut with no electricity, no plumbing and water from a ground-level well that needs to be filtered and then purified with diluted bleach. After staying in his village for four days we came away with a totally different perspective of what we need vs. what we want. Honestly, at this stage in our lives, we don’t really need more things at all.
I know that his life has been changed, but our perspective has been permanently changed, too. As you nicely state in your post, we all must remember how fortunate we are and constantly find ways to give back.
Hoping that the holiday season has allowed you to move that needle over to the life side of that work-life scale – - at least for a little while.