Yours and other comments suggested she doesn’t need it. My experience tells me otherwise.
It’s movember this month and whilst that’s focussed on men’s health, the majority of posters on here are men, so I’ll say this. If you know Anne personally, and your comment is specific to her then I’m realy surprised that sort of thing is being shared by you in a fully open thread. If it’s not then it underlines my earlier point that it’s not about how you think you as an individual you would respond, or how some others you know, but mental wellbeing is built upon the shape of an individual’s foundations. There is no one size fits all. And so for anyone that has a good training buddy, then make time for a real conversation on this stuff with them over the coming 3 weeks. Give your buddy that space to feel that they can share and either talk through what is working and what isn’t. And do the same back. As guys we are really really shitty at this stuff. But then do that in a way that stays between the two of you. Do this now when hopefully there are no issues, so that if (when) in teh future one of you isn’t in a great space, then it will be a lot easier for that conversation to happen.
But don’t forget, there is no one right or wrong, and it’s not about judging someone else’s life. It’s about showing an interest to learn and let them talk it through to perhaps enable a bit of a self check as you speak it out loud.
I have no idea what Anne does or doesn’t do. My comments were more directed at others championing the idea that all she does is work and how great that is. I fully recognize that everyone achieves balance differently but firmly believe everyone needs a healthy work-life balance. My point was made and no need to belabor it any more.
I think what you are confusing (or conflating) is that one can’t get balance out of what they do for work. For example, if Anne goes for a swim, the assumption is that he is not balanced. When I leave at lunch time and my team sees me going for a swim, they think I have balance. In reality, I might be more balance then I come back to what I get paid for and work on a new algorithm or biz stategy with one of the guys who thought I was getting balance going for a swim. I might be getting ready for masters nationals and I did not hit my interval times and feel stressed about that, and then I come back and work on that algorithm getting into major creative mode and get completely energized, Whereas, Anne goes for a swim and she just suddenly felt something special on her catch and got completely stoked. On other days, let’s say I am preparing for a major proposal and its sucking and I go for swim and just get my streamline perfect off the wall and that energizes me.
Isn’t it all situational? We can get balance out of all aspects of our lives. One day, I have an awersome outing with my wife at the cafe. Another day, we have an disagreement and I have to cool off and going to the office and immersing myself in a spreadsheet or discussing strategy for a product launch is what I need for my personal balance.
Revenue generating part of life does not inherently “unbalance us” and neither does non revenue generating time. But its all life. People talk about work like it is a bad thing and as if it is not part of life. Anne appears to have the balance that works for her. We’re just juding her with our personal filters but our filters don’t matter.