It's All About Work-Life Balance
User Story
By Peter Chapman
It's all about work-life balance.
That was the advice I was given at one of my first ever job interviews. Desperate to sell me on the benefits of their particular firm. Yet it was advice that I largely ignored as I decided between the job offers I had after leaving university. In fact, it wasn't until moving to Edmonton that I remembered that advice, and discovered the balance in my life.
You see my work here is on the south side of the river. I live on the north side. Nothing unusual there. You simply commute your way over the river. Easy peasy. And it really is.
And it's also on that short conduit between the north (home) and the south (work) that I found my balance.
I should tell you that I commute by bike. It's cheap, clean, and best of all, it gives me the ability to stop wherever, and whenever, I like on my commute. And so, as I made my way over that multi-use bridge on my first day, I took the liberty to stop.
Stopping is an amazing freedom you don't get in a car. There you must continue moving. Should you stop, your fellow road users would be enraged. Honking their horns, and shouting expletives.
But on my bike, I can stop.
So, there I was, stopped. The North Saskatchewan river flowing below me. I took the time to look around. To breathe the air. To listen to the magpies and the chickadees. I felt relaxed, happy and ready for the day's challenges. Eventually, after one final look around, I rode on. Leaving the bridge behind, and my work ahead.
The next day I stopped again. Taking in the noises from the river and the birds. Taking in the view of downtown (now my favourite vantage point of the city's high rises). Looking the other way, I can barely see a building. Transporting me to the shoes of an early explorer. Travelling along some unexplored Canadian watershed.
And so it was that I started to stop on my ride every day. Sometimes, if I was running late, it'd be for just a few seconds. Time to take in the leaves on the river bank blowing in the wind, before moving on.
Other times, I'd stop for 5, maybe 10 minutes. Lost in my own thoughts. Watching the sun play on the river, or the morning fog lifting slowly round the bend downstream.
As winter approached the transformation along the river was dramatic. Ice floes crashed into the concrete pillars of the bridge. More commonly they'd simply rub against each other as they jostled down the freezing river. The noise is immersing, consuming, enticing.
As the snow comes the bridge takes on a different form. With hard-pack ruts, parallel with the wooden planks below, the bike vibrates wildly. My legs and arms tire, and I'm glad of the break, when I stop. Despite the cold, my body is warmed from the ride. The time passes as I take in a silent coyote crossing the frozen river.
As Spring thaws the ice, it transforms again. The sun is higher, and glares back at me in the morning, dazzling the eyes. And soon we return to summer, and the fast movement of the silty water below.
The river, forever flowing, always brings me calm in the morning. And in the evening, it seems to carry my stresses away.
As I stop on that bridge, I think of my work-life balance. And here, in Edmonton the bridge is my balance. A connection to my work and my life, joining the two disparate parts.
Stopping really is the best thing I could ever have done.
Where Next?
Peter Chapman
Peter Chapman moved to Edmonton 5 years ago from bike friendly Cambridge, in Britain. He loves being outside, and will be testing his mettle this Spring as he and his wife attempt to climb Kilimanjaro on their honeymoon.
