NORTHERN PLANNER

One of the hardest things about this job is work life balance, which is little silly because it's essential. You can't do interesting work if you don't do interesting things and you can't really understand culture unless you actually dip into it from time to time.

It gets harder as you get older too. There's the partner who resents you not spending enough time together and, in my case, the need to spend quality time with your kids. I dread the day my little boy has to be told that Daddy can't watch his school play, or be there in his birthday; it will happen.

There's some sort of conflict between one side of who they are and another. In my case, the curiosity and need to do good work with good people makes working Up North a challenge but responsibilities as a father and husband matter too, not to mention the need to swim.

What I've learned for myself is that I'm not defines by any side of these contradictions or conflicts, what defines me IS that contradiction.

21st century is culture is porous, as are the people that live in it. We are constantly constructing and re-constucting our identities, trying new experiences on for size, playing with our appearances, sloughing off one layer of skin when it doesn't suit us anymore and taking on another…being lots of people at once. Contradiction is at at the heart of who we are and what we're becoming – embrace it.

More reason to not let your job totally define you as far as I'm concerned.