The Old Work-Life Balance Revisited

Last week I watched an old movie (1961) about Oscar Wilde, titled Oscar Wilde. It's the one with Robert Morley (rather heavy for Wilde) and his trial for unnatural relations, or actually, his libel trial against the father of his "friend." The father had written on a note that Wilde was a "sodomnite" and Wilde took him to court, but it did not end well and Wilde went on trial for that crime.

Of course, the movie, which I thought good in many ways, mostly Wilde's dialogue, had low production values and never used any word such as "homosexual" or "sodomy" but it did quote from the trial that landed him in jail for two years, after which he went to Paris and never saw his children and wife again.  Ironically, the last word in the movie is "gay," as in "My life is happy and gay."

From a literary point of few it was of interest because of the aesthetics in the late Victorian era. And, as I said, the bon mots are great. One of them has stuck with me:

"I put my genius into my life and my talent into my work."

I think that is an excellent example.  Do we keep the two in the right perspective, so that our lives get the better part of us than does our work?  Or is work everything?  I fear for me it is, and for most. A series of events, including my friends' death, has put me in a frame to re-evaluate my priorities, but it is hard to recalibrate so that work is in its place as one of many wheels revolving around God in the center.