One of the things that I’ve noticed among my fellow communicators is that most of us tend to fall into the live-to-work category. That is, communications is not only a job, but rather a lifestyle. We’re passionate about what we do. It’s shown in the events attend, the organizations we participate in and the people we socialize with.

What does it mean to live-to-work? To me it means how you invest your time and energy is important to you. The eight hours or so a day spent working needs to fulfill whatever it is you are uniquely looking for. I live-to-work. This doesn’t mean that all I do is work and have no life. But communications is part of my lifestyle and it is important to me that I’m making a difference, providing value and at the end of the day, proud of what I do. I’m often described as a passionate person. Whether this is meant as a compliment or as a fault I don’t know, and frankly don’t care. Passion is what drives communicators to do what they do best. Not only do I want the world to hear my message, but I want it to be changed by it.

Work-to-live? No thanks. Spending eight hours a day converting O2 into CO2 waiting for the clock to hit 5:00pm  so you can get to your “real life” sounds pretty soul crushing. That isn’t to say the work-to-live crowd are not good at what they do or are not satisfied. But rather they are doing something that is just okay to get the money to fund their passions.  And that’s okay – for them. But I’ll stick to my guns and follow my bliss.

How about you? Do you live-to-work or work-to-live? What lights your fire?