ジャッキーの これ、どう思う？ While we're on the topic ...

Jacki's colleagues take a picture of the sunset. JACKIE HOFFART PHOTO

Work-life balance is a tricky one; I certainly don't have it all figured out. I think I could use a better balance: What I need is more "work" and less "life." For most people, I think it's the other way around. But what does work-life balance even mean?

The phrase assumes that each of us has a work part and a life part of our lives. I guess that in this context, work means the time and energy spent at your job, or in the office. People say that mobile phones have destroyed work-life balance because people can be contacted almost anywhere on Earth, and I remember reading somewhere that highly effective people tend to have strict rules around when they can be reached and when they cannot be reached.

I suppose then that the part of our lives ring-fenced as non-work is the life part of work-life balance. And life also probably means time and energy spent with family or on one's hobbies or physical wellbeing.

I think the phrase entered the political discourse to try to encourage people to give over less of their lives to work and more of their time and energy to their families and their health. That sounds great, but I'm not the kind of person a phrase like this was designed for. Far from it.

I can't hold down a job that I don't really love. It's critical to me that I am fulfilled creatively by my work because if I hate my job I start to feel like I'm going crazy and I get very unhappy. And when that happens, I start to divest myself of work — I underachieve; I show up late, I put in the minimum amount of work. It's bad. I must like my job, otherwise I can't succeed. So in a way, I want my life to be my work and my work to be my life.

It's been a very long, very slow journey for me to identify as an artist. I still find it sounds kind of hokey, but I think it's pretty undeniable at this point. I am a writer, a filmmaker, a photographer — and I am at my happiest when I am doing something creative.

My cross to bear, then, is that my life will probably always have a lot of uncertainty and instability, especially financially. That's a very real challenge for me, especially because I owe various people (and banks) quite a bit of money. It's definitely difficult to pursue my dreams in the face of pressure to do something more stable and mainstream with my life. And yet, I believe in myself; the details always sort themselves out somehow.

I recognize that sometimes we all have to take jobs we don't like in order to pay the bills. In fact, I could really use one of those jobs right now.

It helps a lot that I've found an industry (film and television) that I quite enjoy working in and is quite lucrative, but it's slow going getting established. Realistically, it'll probably be a year or two before I start making a good living doing this stuff.

The problem with this industry is that when the work does come, it can take over your life, making it difficult to see friends, visit family or even make plans to go to a concert. I do nothing but work and sleep.

But I love the work so much that I don't mind the 12- to 16-hour-or-longer days, or the fact that I can't make any plans when I'm "on a job." It's a bit extreme, but this kind of work is sort of a lifestyle.

I guess for me, I need a balance when I'm not on set. I have to balance my time between what I call "life admin," paying bills and taxes, going to eye doctors ... things like that, and actual relaxation — actual "time off." In fact, I am taking two days off this week to visit a friend in Seattle. Since my mobile phone won't work there, I guess I'll become like one of those highly effective people. Relaxing away from my phone for a couple days!

Next time, my topic is ... eco-friendly