Ravi visits my apartment complex every day to walk a few dogs. He shows up early and greets every dog with genuine excitement. When I watch him, I see a kind of ease, a calmness, and a quiet joy that doesn’t feel forced. He earns a modest income. He lives a simple life. But his work doesn’t seem to drain him. It suits him.

Then there are others who wake up every day with a dread—already tired and tense for the day ahead. They may be doing well, but their work drains them and leaves them burned out by the end of the day.

We spend most of our lives working. But we still think that work is something that is outside of us—a thing we do just to support our lives. We forget that our work is not something we do, but an integral part of our lives.

The quality of our work life shapes the quality of our lives. But this quality doesn’t depend on the simplicity or busyness of the work we do. It depends on how aligned the work is. A high-earning CEO with 16-hour workdays can feel joy and a successful musician who spends his days slowly, immersed in his craft can feel drained. We all carry different energies, different rhythms, and the work that brings joy to one can feel draining to another.

This joy or drain our work gives us slowly accumulates in our body and mind. Joy often shows up as excitement and energy in the mornings, a stride in our steps in the afternoon, and as a feeling of calm and peace in the evenings. But when we collect drain, it shows up as burnout in the mornings, as disillusionment in the afternoon, and as accumulated stress in the evenings.

The ones collecting joy seem to move through life with a lighter step. For them, most days seem to carry a quiet sense of enough. But the ones collecting drain often need periodic escapes—an exotic holiday, moments of indulgence, visible rewards—to de-stress their lives. This is how they reassure themselves that the time spent in joyless work was still worth it.

We all choose a different mix of joy and drain. We all make trade-offs. And while our choices may be shaped by constraints, we still have free will. We still have time in our lives. We can still choose.

Mudit