essay about work is the fuel of life

Essays About Work: 7 Examples and 8 Prompts

If you want to write well-researched essays about work, check out our guide of helpful essay examples and writing prompts for this topic.

Whether employed or self-employed, we all need to work to earn a living. Work could provide a source of purpose for some but also stress for many. The causes of stress could be an unmanageable workload, low pay, slow career development, an incompetent boss, and companies that do not care about your well-being.  Essays about work  can help us understand how to achieve a work/life balance for long-term happiness.

Work can still be a happy place to develop essential skills such as leadership and teamwork. If we adopt the right mindset, we can focus on situations we can improve and avoid stressing ourselves over situations we have no control over. We should also be free to speak up against workplace issues and abuses to defend our labor rights. Check out our  essay writing topics  for more.

5 Examples of Essays About Work

1.  when the future of work means always looking for your next job by bruce horovitz, 2. ‘quiet quitting’ isn’t the solution for burnout by rebecca vidra, 3. the science of why we burn out and don’t have to by joe robinson , 4. how to manage your career in a vuca world by murali murthy, 5. the challenges of regulating the labor market in developing countries by gordon betcherman, 6. creating the best workplace on earth by rob goffee and gareth jones, 7. employees seek personal value and purpose at work. be prepared to deliver by jordan turner, 8 writing prompts on essays about work, 1. a dream work environment, 2. how is school preparing you for work, 3. the importance of teamwork at work, 4. a guide to find work for new graduates, 5. finding happiness at work, 6. motivating people at work, 7. advantages and disadvantages of working from home, 8. critical qualities you need to thrive at work.

“For a host of reasons—some for a higher salary, others for improved benefits, and many in search of better company culture—America’s workforce is constantly looking for its next gig.”

A perennial search for a job that fulfills your sense of purpose has been an emerging trend in the work landscape in recent years. Yet, as human resource managers scramble to minimize employee turnover, some still believe there will still be workers who can exit a company through a happy retirement. You might also be interested in these  essays about unemployment .

“…[L]et’s creatively collaborate on ways to re-establish our own sense of value in our institutions while saying yes only to invitations that nourish us instead of sucking up more of our energy.”

Quiet quitting signals more profound issues underlying work, such as burnout or the bosses themselves. It is undesirable in any workplace, but to have it in school, among faculty members, spells doom as the future of the next generation is put at stake. In this essay, a teacher learns how to keep from burnout and rebuild a sense of community that drew her into the job in the first place.

“We don’t think about managing the demands that are pushing our buttons, we just keep reacting to them on autopilot on a route I call the burnout treadmill. Just keep going until the paramedics arrive.”

Studies have shown the detrimental health effects of stress on our mind, emotions and body. Yet we still willingly take on the treadmill to stress, forgetting our boundaries and wellness. It is time to normalize seeking help from our superiors to resolve burnout and refuse overtime and heavy workloads.

“As we start to emerge from the pandemic, today’s workplace demands a different kind of VUCA career growth. One that’s Versatile, Uplifting, Choice-filled and Active.”

The only thing constant in work is change. However, recent decades have witnessed greater work volatility where tech-oriented people and creative minds flourish the most. The essay provides tips for applying at work daily to survive and even thrive in the VUCA world. You might also be interested in these  essays about motivation .

“Ultimately, the biggest challenge in regulating labor markets in developing countries is what to do about the hundreds of millions of workers (or even more) who are beyond the reach of formal labor market rules and social protections.”

The challenge in regulating work is balancing the interest of employees to have dignified work conditions and for employers to operate at the most reasonable cost. But in developing countries, the difficulties loom larger, with issues going beyond equal pay to universal social protection coverage and monitoring employers’ compliance.

“Suppose you want to design the best company on earth to work for. What would it be like? For three years, we’ve been investigating this question by asking hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars all over the world to describe their ideal organization.”

If you’ve ever wondered what would make the best workplace, you’re not alone. In this essay, Jones looks at how employers can create a better workplace for employees by using surveys and interviews. The writer found that individuality and a sense of support are key to creating positive workplace environments where employees are comfortable.

“Bottom line: People seek purpose in their lives — and that includes work. The more an employer limits those things that create this sense of purpose, the less likely employees will stay at their positions.”

In this essay, Turner looks at how employees seek value in the workplace. This essay dives into how, as humans, we all need a purpose. If we can find purpose in our work, our overall happiness increases. So, a value and purpose-driven job role can create a positive and fruitful work environment for both workers and employers.

In this essay, talk about how you envision yourself as a professional in the future. You can be as creative as to describe your workplace, your position, and your colleagues’ perception of you. Next, explain why this is the line of work you dream of and what you can contribute to society through this work. Finally, add what learning programs you’ve signed up for to prepare your skills for your dream job. For more, check out our list of simple essays topics for intermediate writers .

For your essay, look deeply into how your school prepares the young generation to be competitive in the future workforce. If you want to go the extra mile, you can interview students who have graduated from your school and are now professionals. Ask them about the programs or practices in your school that they believe have helped mold them better at their current jobs.

In a workplace where colleagues compete against each other, leaders could find it challenging to cultivate a sense of cooperation and teamwork. So, find out what creative activities companies can undertake to encourage teamwork across teams and divisions. For example, regular team-building activities help strengthen professional bonds while assisting workers to recharge their minds.

Finding a job after receiving your undergraduate diploma can be full of stress, pressure, and hard work. Write an essay that handholds graduate students in drafting their resumes and preparing for an interview. You may also recommend the top job market platforms that match them with their dream work. You may also ask recruitment experts for tips on how graduates can make a positive impression in job interviews.

Creating a fun and happy workplace may seem impossible. But there has been a flurry of efforts in the corporate world to keep workers happy. Why? To make them more productive. So, for your essay, gather research on what practices companies and policy-makers should adopt to help workers find meaning in their jobs. For example, how often should salary increases occur? You may also focus on what drives people to quit jobs that raise money. If it’s not the financial package that makes them satisfied, what does? Discuss these questions with your readers for a compelling essay.

Motivation could scale up workers’ productivity, efficiency, and ambition for higher positions and a longer tenure in your company. Knowing which method of motivation best suits your employees requires direct managers to know their people and find their potential source of intrinsic motivation. For example, managers should be able to tell whether employees are having difficulties with their tasks to the point of discouragement or find the task too easy to boredom.

A handful of managers have been worried about working from home for fears of lowering productivity and discouraging collaborative work. Meanwhile, those who embrace work-from-home arrangements are beginning to see the greater value and benefits of giving employees greater flexibility on when and where to work. So first, draw up the pros and cons of working from home. You can also interview professionals working or currently working at home. Finally, provide a conclusion on whether working from home can harm work output or boost it.

Identifying critical skills at work could depend on the work applied. However, there are inherent values and behavioral competencies that recruiters demand highly from employees. List the top five qualities a professional should possess to contribute significantly to the workplace. For example, being proactive is a valuable skill because workers have the initiative to produce without waiting for the boss to prod them.

If you need help with grammar, our guide to  grammar and syntax  is a good start to learning more. We also recommend taking the time to  improve the readability score  of your essays before publishing or submitting them.

Meet Rachael, the editor at Become a Writer Today. With years of experience in the field, she is passionate about language and dedicated to producing high-quality content that engages and informs readers. When she's not editing or writing, you can find her exploring the great outdoors, finding inspiration for her next project.

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How Does Work-Life Balance Fit Into a Happy Life?

Finding the right work-life balance is by no means a new issue in our society. But the tension between the two has been heightened by the pandemic, with workers increasingly dwelling over the nature of their work , its meaning and purpose , and how these affect their quality of life .

Studies suggest people are leaving or planning to leave their employers in record numbers in 2021—a “ great resignation ” that appears to have been precipitated by these reflections. But if we’re all reconsidering where and how work slots into our lives, what should we be aiming at?

It’s easy to believe that if only we didn’t need to work, or we could work far fewer hours, we’d be happier, living a life of hedonic experiences in all their healthy and unhealthy forms. But this fails to explain why some retirees pick up freelance jobs and some lottery winners go straight back to work.

Striking the perfect work-life balance, if there is such a thing, isn’t necessarily about tinkering with when, where, and how we work—it’s a question of why we work. And that means understanding sources of happiness that might not be so obvious to us, but which have crept into view over the course of the pandemic.

Attempts to find a better work-life balance are well merited. Work is consistently and positively related to our well-being and constitutes a large part of our identity . Ask yourself who you are, and very soon you’ll resort to describing what you do for work.

Our jobs can provide us with a sense of competence, which contributes to well-being. Researchers have demonstrated not only that labor leads to validation but that, when these feelings are threatened, we’re particularly drawn to activities that require effort—often some form of work—because these demonstrate our ability to shape our environment, confirming our identities as competent individuals.

Work even seems to makes us happier in circumstances when we’d rather opt for leisure. This was demonstrated by a series of clever experiments in which participants had the option to be idle (waiting in a room for 15 minutes for an experiment to start) or to be busy (walking for 15 minutes to another venue to participate in an experiment). Very few participants chose to be busy, unless they were forced to make the walk, or given a reason to (being told there was chocolate at the other venue).

Yet the researchers found that those who’d spent 15 minutes walking ended up significantly happier than those who’d spent 15 minutes waiting—no matter whether they’d had a choice or a chocolate or neither. In other words, busyness contributes to happiness even when you think you’d prefer to be idle. Animals seem to get this instinctively: In experiments, most would rather work for food than get it for free.

Eudaimonic happiness

The idea that work, or putting effort into tasks, contributes to our general well-being is closely related to the psychological concept of eudaimonic happiness . This is the sort of happiness that we derive from optimal functioning and realizing our potential. Research has shown that work and effort are central to eudaimonic happiness, explaining that satisfaction and pride you feel on completing a grueling task.

On the other side of the work-life balance stands hedonic happiness, which is defined as the presence of positive feelings such as cheerfulness and the relative scarcity of negative feelings such as sadness or anger. We know that hedonic happiness offers empirical mental and physical health benefits , and that leisure is a great way to pursue hedonic happiness.

But even in the realm of leisure, our unconscious orientation toward busyness lurks in the background. A recent study has suggested that there really is such a thing as too much free time—and that our subjective well-being actually begins to drop if we have more than five hours of it in a day. Whiling away effortless days on the beach doesn’t seem to be the key to long-term happiness.

This might explain why some people prefer to expend significant effort during their leisure time. Researchers have likened this to compiling an experiential CV , sampling unique but potentially unpleasant or even painful experiences—at the extremes, this might be spending a night in an ice hotel, or joining an endurance desert race. People who take part in these forms of “leisure” typically talk about fulfilling personal goals, making progress, and accumulating accomplishments—all features of eudaimonic happiness, not the hedonism we associate with leisure.

The real balance

This orientation sits well with a new concept in the field of well-being studies: that a rich and diverse experiential happiness is the third component of a “good life,” in addition to hedonic and eudaimonic happiness.

Across nine countries and tens of thousands of participants, researchers recently found that most people (over 50% in each country) would still prefer a happy life typified by hedonic happiness. But around a quarter prefer a meaningful life embodied by eudaimonic happiness, and a small but nevertheless significant amount of people (about 10-15% in each country) choose to pursue a rich and diverse experiential life.

Given these different approaches to life, perhaps the key to long-lasting well-being is to consider which lifestyle suits you best: hedonic, eudaimonic, or experiential. Rather than pitching work against life, the real balance to strike post-pandemic is between these three sources of happiness.

This article was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article .

About the Author

Lis Ku, Ph.D., is an experimental social psychologist who is interested in the impact of socially grounded values such as materialism on various types of behavior that have important implications for both individual and societal well-being. Using laboratory and field methods, her work focuses primarily on testing the application of values and motivational processes to domains such as education, work, health, and prosociality.

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Does Work Make You Happy? Evidence from the World Happiness Report

• Jan-Emmanuel De Neve
• George Ward

Blue collar vs. white collar, employed vs. unemployed, self-employed vs. the rest.

A new analysis draws on data from hundreds of thousands of individuals across the globe, investigating the ways in which elements of people’s working lives drive their wellbeing. The type of job you have matters: white-collar and managerial workers are generally happier than blue-collar workers. Where you live also matters: life evaluation fluctuates according to country. Interestingly, in all countries, self-employed people report both more positive and more negative work experiences, suggesting that being your own boss is both rewarding and stressful. Being unemployed is miserable, and not just for the unemployed person: people who remain employed in areas with high unemployment also report lower overall wellbeing. Finally, while pay is important, certain non-monetary aspects of employment matter too: factors like autonomy and work-life balance can influence how happy you feel.

Since most of us spend a great deal of our lives working, it is inevitable that work plays a key role in shaping our levels of happiness. In a recent chapter of the World Happiness Report — published annually to coincide with the United Nation’s International Day of Happiness — we look more closely at the relationship between work and happiness. We draw largely upon the Gallup World Poll , which has been surveying people in over 150 countries around the world since 2006. These efforts allow us to analyze data from hundreds of thousands of individuals across the globe and investigate the ways in which elements of people’s working lives drive their wellbeing.

• JN Jan-Emmanuel De Neve is Associate Professor of Economics and Strategy at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and an Associate Editor of the World Happiness Report .
• GW George Ward is a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Work and Employment Research, MIT Sloan School of Management.

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Essay on Work Life Balance

Students are often asked to write an essay on Work Life Balance in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Work Life Balance

Understanding work-life balance.

Work-life balance is about dividing your time between work and personal activities. It is important because it helps you stay happy, healthy, and productive.

Importance of Work-Life Balance

When you have a good work-life balance, you can focus on your job and still have time for hobbies, family, and friends. This balance can reduce stress and increase job satisfaction.

Strategies for Achieving Balance

To achieve work-life balance, set boundaries between work and personal time. Prioritize tasks and take breaks to relax. Remember, balance is key to a fulfilling life.

Also check:

• 10 Lines on Work Life Balance

250 Words Essay on Work Life Balance

Introduction.

Work-life balance, a concept that once seemed like a far-off dream, has now become a central discussion point in modern society. It represents the equilibrium that an individual needs between their work and personal life.

The Importance of Balance

A well-balanced life is crucial for personal happiness, relationships, and overall well-being. It also impacts productivity, job satisfaction, and even the quality of work. An imbalance can lead to stress, burnout, and health issues.

The Role of Employers

Employers play a significant role in promoting work-life balance. They can implement flexible working hours, remote working opportunities, and limit overtime. Encouraging employees to take regular breaks and vacation time also contributes to a healthier work environment.

Personal Responsibility

However, the onus is not solely on employers. Individuals must also take responsibility for managing their time effectively. This includes setting boundaries, prioritizing tasks, and ensuring they allocate time for leisure and relaxation.

In conclusion, work-life balance is not a luxury but a necessity in the modern world. It requires a collective effort from both employers and employees. By prioritizing this balance, we can create a healthier, happier, and more productive society.

500 Words Essay on Work Life Balance

Introduction to work-life balance.

Work-life balance, a term that has gained significant traction in recent years, refers to the equilibrium that an individual needs to maintain between work-related activities and personal life. In a fast-paced world where the boundaries between work and personal life are increasingly blurred, achieving this balance is both challenging and crucial.

The Importance of Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is more than a trendy buzzword; it’s a critical aspect of a healthy work environment. It aids in the reduction of stress and burnout, often associated with a heavy workload and long hours. When work-life balance is achieved, it contributes to the overall well-being of individuals, leading to increased productivity, job satisfaction, and positive attitudes towards work. It also fosters a sense of control over one’s work and personal life, promoting a more harmonious and fulfilling existence.

Challenges to Work-Life Balance

In today’s era of technological advancements, the line between work and personal life has become increasingly blurred. The ability to work remotely or from home, while offering flexibility, can also lead to “always-on” work culture. This culture can create an environment where employees feel they are expected to be available around the clock, leading to increased stress and decreased personal time.

Moreover, societal and peer pressure can also create a culture of overwork. The glorification of being busy and the association of long hours with dedication and productivity often leads to an imbalance, affecting both mental and physical health.

Strategies for Achieving Work-Life Balance

Achieving work-life balance requires concerted effort from both individuals and organizations. Here are a few strategies that can help:

1. Setting Boundaries: It’s crucial to establish clear boundaries between work and personal life. This could mean setting specific work hours, taking regular breaks, and ensuring time for relaxation and leisure activities.

2. Time Management: Effective time management is key. Prioritizing tasks, delegating when possible, and using productivity tools can help manage workload and free up time for personal activities.

3. Self-Care: Regular exercise, a healthy diet, and adequate sleep are essential for maintaining physical health and mental well-being, enabling better coping with stress.

4. Organizational Policies: Companies can foster work-life balance by implementing policies such as flexible working hours, remote work options, and promoting a culture that values employee well-being.

Work-life balance is not a luxury, but a necessity for holistic well-being. It is a dynamic process that requires continuous effort and adaptation to the changing demands of our personal and professional lives. By prioritizing both work and personal life, individuals can achieve a sense of harmony and satisfaction, leading to a healthier and more productive life.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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• Essay on Work is Worship
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106 Work-Life Balance Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Achieving a healthy work-life balance is crucial for maintaining overall well-being and happiness. However, finding the right balance can be challenging, especially in today's fast-paced and demanding world. To help you explore this important topic further, we have compiled a list of 106 work-life balance essay topic ideas and examples. Whether you are a student looking for inspiration for your next essay or a professional seeking to improve your work-life balance, these topics are sure to spark your interest.

• The importance of work-life balance for overall well-being
• Strategies for achieving work-life balance
• The impact of technology on work-life balance
• Balancing work and family responsibilities
• The role of employers in promoting work-life balance
• The benefits of a flexible work schedule
• The consequences of a poor work-life balance
• Work-life balance challenges faced by remote workers
• The stigma surrounding work-life balance in the workplace
• The link between work-life balance and mental health
• Balancing work and personal relationships
• The impact of work-life balance on job satisfaction
• The role of self-care in achieving work-life balance
• The importance of setting boundaries to maintain work-life balance
• The benefits of unplugging from work during non-working hours
• The impact of burnout on work-life balance
• The benefits of mindfulness in achieving work-life balance
• The role of exercise in maintaining work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on productivity
• Balancing work and leisure activities
• The benefits of taking regular breaks during the workday
• The impact of work-life balance on physical health
• The benefits of time management in achieving work-life balance
• The consequences of workaholism on work-life balance
• The importance of setting realistic goals to maintain work-life balance
• Balancing work and hobbies
• The impact of stress on work-life balance
• The benefits of a supportive work environment for work-life balance
• The role of communication in achieving work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on creativity and innovation
• The benefits of a healthy work-life balance for career advancement
• The consequences of neglecting work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on job performance
• Balancing work and personal finances
• The benefits of time off in maintaining work-life balance
• The consequences of overworking on work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on job turnover
• The benefits of work-life balance for employee retention
• The role of leadership in promoting work-life balance
• The impact of workplace culture on work-life balance
• The benefits of remote work for achieving work-life balance
• The consequences of a lack of work-life balance for mental health
• The impact of work-life balance on employee engagement
• Balancing work and caregiving responsibilities
• The benefits of work-life balance for overall happiness
• The consequences of work-life imbalance for personal relationships
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life conflict
• The benefits of work-life balance for job satisfaction
• The role of technology in promoting work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life integration
• Balancing work and education
• The benefits of work-life balance for career progression
• The consequences of neglecting work-life balance for physical health
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life harmony
• The benefits of work-life balance for stress management
• The role of flexibility in achieving work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life boundaries
• The benefits of work-life balance for overall well-being
• The consequences of a lack of work-life balance for job satisfaction
• Balancing work and volunteer commitments
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life satisfaction
• The benefits of work-life balance for work-life fulfillment
• The role of self-reflection in achieving work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life enrichment
• The benefits of work-life balance for work-life engagement
• The consequences of neglecting work-life balance for work-life fulfillment
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life achievement
• The benefits of work-life balance for work-life success
• The role of self-awareness in achieving work-life balance
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life effectiveness
• The benefits of work-life balance for work-life efficiency
• The consequences of neglecting work-life balance for work-life effectiveness
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life productivity
• The benefits of work-life balance for work-life performance
• The impact of work-life balance on work-life well-being
• The benefits of work-life balance for work-life happiness

In conclusion, achieving a healthy work-life balance is essential for maintaining overall well-being and happiness. By exploring these 106 work-life balance essay topic ideas and examples, you can gain a better understanding of the importance of work-life balance and discover strategies for achieving it in your own life. Whether you are a student or a professional, these topics are sure to inspire you to prioritize your well-being and find the right balance between work and personal life.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Work-Life Balance — Work-Life Balance: Importance and Strategies

Work-life Balance: Importance and Strategies

• Categories: Work-Life Balance

About this sample

Words: 885 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 885 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, definition and understanding of work-life balance, the role of work in one's life, the impact of an imbalance between work and personal life, strategies for achieving work-life balance, benefits of work-life balance, case studies/examples, challenges and obstacles in achieving work-life balance, ix. conclusion, references:.

• Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A. & Campbell, T.T. (2017). Organizational Behavior (17th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
• Huffington, A. (2014). Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-being, Wisdom, and Wonder. Harmony Books
• Gottfried, S. (2016). The Hormone Cure: Reclaim Balance, Sleep, and Sex Drive; Lose Weight; Feel Focused, Vital, and Energized Naturally with the Gottfried Protocol. Scribner

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Benefits of Work-Life Balance Analytical Essay

Introduction, benefits of work-life balance for employees, benefits of work-life balance for employers, reference list.

All workers face a great challenge trying to harmonize their lives, thus balancing between their works and families. In such a situation, families end up being affected. Some parents would like produce more children but the cost of them stopping to work seems too high.

Other couples are contented with the size of their families but want to work more (Di Cieri, Holmes, Abbott, & Pettit, 2002 p. 2). There is need for managers to encourage their workers to feel free to request for flexible working hours. Poor communication and cultural perceptions are the major obstacles to work-life balance for employees. Managers should change the cultural perceptions in their organizations to make sure those workers who need work-life balance are not seen as noncommittal to their work obligations.

If couples are forced to decide between bringing up their children and working, this will lead to very few children and very little employment. Having a good balance between work and life is a crucial issue for the well being of children because a child who is brought up working parents is thrice less likely to experience poverty compared to children with one working parent (Di Cieri, Holmes, Abbott, & Pettit, 2002 p. 1).

A good balance between work and family also reduces stress of the parents leading to more benefits to the relationship between children and parents as well as the relationship between both parents. Approximately 66% of mothers in OECD seek employment after their child is old enough to go to school.

This shows that families are capable of balancing their careers and families successfully. The number of hours an individual spends at work is also a significant factor of the balance between work and life. Research has indicated that long hours at work are likely to increase personal stress, endanger personal safety, and harm personal health. Besides, the more a person works the less likely will he/she be able to have time for other activities (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008 p. 10).

In the OECD, an average individual works 1739 hours each year and spends about 64% of their day for leisure and personal care (Bradford, 2011, par. 5). The balance of work and life does not necessarily mean an equal balance.

Managers play a very crucial role in helping their workers to attain the correct work-life balance. When managers promote a working environment that makes it easy for their employees to realize a good balance between their work and life, the organization will have motivated, healthier, more contented workers. The employees who have a better work-life balance are more satisfied with their jobs and eventually become more productive which is a benefit for the entire organization.

Managers can help their workforce to attain a work and life balance by: implementing flexible working schedules and work arrangements that meet the needs of employees, being respectful and thoughtful of employee personal responsibilities, creating time for employees to pursue career development and opportunities to serve the community, and by promoting a constructive work setting by providing good leadership and supporting all workers (Bohl, 2007 p. 25).

By providing a good work-life balance for the workers, the working environment becomes less stressful for the employees leading to increased organizational profits. Human resource managers should be more understanding and flexible with the needs of the employees in order to promote a successful and positive working environment (Halbert, 2008 p. 15).

There are both personal and organizational benefits for a work-life balance. The benefits for the organization include: increased personal accountability and productivity, better on the job relationships, communication and team work, improved group morale, and reduced general organizational stress.

Personal benefits include: healthier daily life balance and increased productivity, more fulfilling work experience, reduced stress, and improved work and off the job relationships. Work-life balance is not just a slogan but its life. There are various organizations who have adopted values that allow the workers to have a fulfilling work-life balance.

These companies have concentrated on the needs of their employees which are very crucial and the organizations have planned resolutions and opportunities which allow employees have more time for themselves, their families, as well as the society (Bohl, 2007 p. 20).

However, a few other companies have implemented a balance between work and life as directives of the human resources but not as a way of life or as a general corporate strategy. Such companies are gradually lagging behind. For all the parties involved in implementing a work-life balance a lot of work still needs to be done at many organizational levels. The distinct and most crucial principle that needs to be created is that it is not only possible to establish a work-life balance, but it is also proper, significant, and applicable to all the employees. Misconceptions are widespread that senior management does not need work-life balance. This fallacy also states that people should be workaholics to be successful.

Questions are being raised regarding the conventional explanations of what must be done in order to succeed in the corporate world. Many people particularly employees have come to the realization that they want to get involved with their families having to give up their advancement opportunities or their income.

Research has indicated that a majority of full time employees actually prefer shorter working hours and even if many organizations are slowly implementing flexible working practices such as part time jobs such working practices are characterized by limited career development opportunities, low skilled jobs and low pay (Giovanna, 2006 p. 1).

This is explained by believable market failures where an increasing number of employees believe that if they request for shorter working hours the boss is likely to assume that they are noncommittal to their jobs, employers may not have the necessary knowledge about recruitment and management of flexible practices like part time work and see such practices as a burden to them.

For many employees’ lives, time has become the new currency and they require more of it. It is exciting for those who know how to spare time for their families and still grow in their career. However, a majority of employees are forced to make tough decisions regarding their life. As the discussions about work-life balance increases, organizations as well as individuals must recognize and pay attention to these vital issues.

Work and life are not mutually exclusive and therefore people should not let the two issues conflict one another. Whether the debate is termed as work-life balance or family-life balance they are all based on life (Reynolds, Callender, & Edwards, 2003 p. 50). All people need a work-life balance even the most promising careers and the highest salaries. The high salaries and promising careers are of little help to the employees if their personal lives suffer because of excessive work.

Currently, when candidates are choosing the organization to work for, their main consideration is whether the organization allows their workers to concentrate on a balance between their work and their personal lives. Individuals should find ways to create the correct balance between their work and life.

The right work-life balance differs from one person to another even between workmates. Working long hours creates a balance and worth for some people while for others this work schedule makes them unproductive and they may not want to maintain it. After some time, the right work-life balance for all people changes. A person starting a career will have a different work-life balance from a person who is about to retire.

Similarly, for a person with a family, their right work-life balance will be different from that of a person with no children (Stone, 2011 p. 60). The correct work-life balance is likely to change over time and while people struggle to create a situation that enables employees to incorporate their personal or family life, the employees must find means of creating the best work-life balance for themselves.

When employers allow workers to work in flexible conditions they improve the lives of the employees by providing the best work-life balance.

This ultimately enables those who provide care to the old and sick to balance their community responsibilities with the organizational roles, reduces the number of people who depend solely on benefits, allows employees who are older to continue staying in the labor market, reduces poverty levels and the statistics of children of working parents who live in poverty, and helps workers to achieve the correct work-life or work-family balance.

A majority of women working on part time basis are working below their potential. Research has indicated that almost half of the women who work on part time basis have held jobs in the past which required higher qualifications or more responsibilities. Part time jobs mostly involve work positions with low pay. This results to lesser opportunities for such employees to enter the labor market leading to high economic losses as well as workplace inequality.

Working part time is one of the various ways of working in a flexible environment. Organizations should raise awareness of the various ways and change the notion that working part time must involve a fixed amount of time or days in a week or that working flexibly means working for lesser hours.

Current outlook of parenting means that more parents and particularly fathers would like to be able to work in a flexible environment so that they can spend some time with their families and be more active in raising their children. Flexibility is important for those who provide care in order for them to balance their responsibilities to provide care with their employment (Probert, 2007 p. 4). Older employees wish to extent their working lives but do not necessarily want to work full time.

In general, workers want to have a better balance between their responsibilities in the office with their obligations at home. Having the best work-life balance can help the organization to retain skilled and experienced employees and preserve quality and reduce recruitment costs. The talent pool of employees is increased when the organization offers flexible hours enabling employers to recruit candidates with better skills, retain committed and loyal employees. This way productivity will improve leading to an increase in organizational profits.

Employers should understand the importance of work-life balance to make sure that customers get quality services. Economic recession has forced employers to adopt more flexible working practices. The disadvantage of the recession in terms of working flexibility is that the number of workers holding part time jobs and who prefer to hold full time work has gone up (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 2002 p. 6).

The advantage of the recession is that the reaction of employers of providing more flexible work is an indication that organizational attitudes can change and organizational capability to embrace and make work-life balance have a long-term impact. Having a better work-life balance enables workers to be in a better position to balance both work obligations and home life.

Today, both parents want to balance between their families, work as well their caring obligations which nowadays are shared more equally (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 2002 p. 14). Flexible working conditions are a significant factor that employees consider when applying a job.

Male and female employees with children and those who provide care to the elderly or sick people consider work-life balance very important in a job. Modern parenting involves both parents making decisions together concerning the management of chores and meeting their family and children needs.

Childcare is no longer viewed as a responsibility of women alone. The role of fathers has become important in the equal division of duties and childcare. However, the desire of parents to spend more time with their families is limited by inflexible working environments.

Job design is about recruiting and designing a proper workload and the ability to manage employees working in different patterns. Understanding the prospective job responsibility and the necessary deliverables and outputs can convince employers that working full time is not the desired position (Kaila, 2005 p. 15). Advising employers on ways of evaluating if existing or new roles can be worked with work-life flexibility can assist in attracting a broader pool of talent to the organization.

Job design can identify whether working flexibility can apply to a specific job. Managers should put more emphasis on the amount of time required to complete the job or what the job entails instead of taking the view that all jobs are designed on a full time basis. Poor job design may be the cause of the difficulties related to the implementation of flexible working or work-life balance practices.

Line managers have a significant role to play in the implementation of practices that encourage work-life balance. Managers should be trained so that they may understand and be able evaluate if a job can be performed part time and support the workers in the new job practices (Yeandle, Philips, Scheibl, Wigfield, & Wise, p75). When performing job design managers should involve existing workers who want the work-life balance because they are the people who fully understand the job limitations.

It is also important for managers to encourage good practice when advertising job opportunities. In most cases, employers have part time employees in their organizations but do not seem to understand the wide variety of working options available when hiring new employees.

Employers should be encouraged to design and advertise jobs that can offer the right work-life balance. Small and medium size enterprises lack a dedicated human resource function in their organizations and therefore both the employees and employers in such companies do not know where to get advice for debating these matters.

Bohl, D.B. (2007). Work-life balance isn’t PR slogan its life . Reflections coaching, LLC . Web.

Bradford, H. (2011). The 10 Countries With The Best Work-Life Balance: OECD . The Huffington Post. Web.

Di Cieri, H, Holmes, B., Abbott, J. & Pettit, T. (2002). Work/life balance strategies: progress and problems in Australian organizations . (Working Paper 58/02 , Monash University, Melbourne, Australia). Web.

Giovanna, R. (2006). Reconciling family and work: New Challenges for Social Policies in Europe. Milano. FrancoAngeli.

Greenhaus, J.H. & Parasuraman, S. (2002). Toward reducing some critical gaps in work-family research. Human resource management review . 12, 299-313.

Halbert, T. & Ingulli, E. (2008). Law & Ethics in the business environment . Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Kaila, H.L. (2005). Human resource management (in Two Volumes). Delhi: Kalpaz Publications.

Probert, R. (2007). Family life and the law: under one roof . Cornwall, Great Britain: Ashgate Publishing Company.

Stone, R. (2011). Human Resource Management . Australia: John Wiley & Sons.

Reynolds, T., Callender, C. & Edwards, R. (2003 ). Caring and counting: The impact of mothers’ employment on family relationships . Bristol: The Policy Press.

Yeandle, S., Philips, J., Scheibl, F., Wigfield, A. & Wise, S.(2003). Line managers and family-friendly employment: roles and perspectives. Bristol: The Policy Press.

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Why Work-Life Balance Is So Important—and How to Nail It

When the workday is over, it should really be over

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Rachel Goldman, PhD FTOS, is a licensed psychologist, clinical assistant professor, speaker, wellness expert specializing in eating behaviors, stress management, and health behavior change.

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• What Do We Mean When We Say "Work-Life Balance"?

How Can I Tell If I Have a Healthy Work-Life Balance?

Can i request a healthier work-life balance (if so, how), how to improve your work-life balance.

Does it ever feel like your job is taking over your life? Or do you seem to have so many personal obligations that you can’t give 100% at work? We know we need work-life balance, but finding harmony between your professional and personal life isn't always as easy as it sounds. 

Work plays a major role in our lives. It takes up much of our waking hours during the traditional workweek. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that we are also taking care of the areas of our lives that keep us healthy and happy. 

Professional fulfillment can be a part of that, for sure. But well-being also involves all of the things outside of work that makes your life worthwhile, including your family, hobbies, health, and relationships (not to mention sleep, exercise, balanced meals, and relaxation).

At a Glance

Work-life balance generally refers to a balance between your personal and work life. The goal is to strive to keep that balance so that we are managing stress and burnout by fulfilling other areas of our lives that aren't swallowed up by work. Remember: That "balance" may shift at times and is never really a 50/50 split. We can accept that there may not ever be a balance, but we can strive to feel more grounded and balanced by making a personalized plan, exploring ways to improve that balance with our manager, taking breaks, and creating set boundaries between our personal vs. professional duties. If we're in a position to change jobs and our conversations with our manager are unsuccessful, we could also explore other opportunities that offer more flexibility.

What Do We Mean When We Say "Work-Life Balance"?

Work-life balance is usually defined as an equilibrium between your professional and personal life. When you keep things balanced, no single element of your life dominates and overwhelms the others.

"Work-life balance is the concept that you effectively manage your professional life and responsibilities so that you are productive and successful at work while ensuring you have plenty of dedicated time to live a fulfilling, grounded, personal life," says Abbey Sangmeister, MS.Ed, LPC, ACS .

That’s a general definition of the concept, but "work-life" balance can also mean different things to different people. Researchers suggest that this is because this balance is all about individual perception. It's something you feel when your work and non-work activities are in harmony and are compatible with your current goals and priorities.

The things that make your own work-life situation feel manageable may differ depending on your needs and your situation.

For working parents, it often means finding a way to juggle the responsibilities of a career while still finding time for a fulfilling family life. With rising numbers of older workers, work-life balance may focus more on staying active in the workforce while finding ways to manage health issues or disabilities.  

Major shifts in how we work have also helped change the definition of work-life balance for many people. For many people, work-life balance meant clocking out at 5 p.m. and not thinking about work until you showed up at the office at 9 a.m. the next day. 

Being tethered to an office is a thing of the past for many folks. It makes sense that, for many of us, the option for flexible or remote work is an essential part of work-life balance. This means that work-life balance is much more personal and nuanced these days–but it also makes finding a balance harder than ever before.  

Many times people think balance is a 50/50 split but that is not always the case. For each person, the balance may look different and will shift during different seasons of their life. The important part of having balance is that the person does not feel that one area of life is draining and depleting the other.

What Work-Life Balance Is Not

Work-life balance isn’t about slacking off, skipping work, or putting in less effort . Obviously, we all have our good and bad days, but there are ways to manage the days we’re feeling a little "off" that don’t involve hurting yourself professionally. 

Procrastinating or shirking your responsibilities aren’t effective ways to cope. You might feel a little better for a bit, but it ultimately creates more problems in the future. Work piles up, deadlines fly by, and your employer might start to notice that you’re not putting in your best effort.

The goal is to find a harmonious balance that works for you, between the demands on your time and energy, without neglecting important areas of your life.

You don’t want to ignore your personal life in favor of your job, but you also shouldn’t deal with stress by neglecting your workplace duties.

So how exactly can you tell if you have a healthy work-life balance? It can look a little different for everyone (since we all have different work, family, and relationship situations). 

"Lack of regular overwhelm and frustration are good signs that one does have good work-life balance. People who struggle with the Sunday scaries and dread or have a case of [the] Mondays more times than not are most likely struggling with an imbalance," Sangmeister suggests.

The following are a few signs that you’re striking a good balance between your job and other areas of your life:

• You don't feel like the demands of your work roles and personal obligations are constantly in conflict
• You're able to meet your deadlines at work without having to work overtime
• You're getting plenty of sleep at night and eating a healthy, balanced diet
• You don't spend the end of your weekend consumed by the " Sunday Scaries "
• You have plenty of time to relax and enjoy your hobbies
• You feel like you're spending enough time with family and friends
• You don't worry about your job when you're not at work
• You feel like you're being productive at work and making progress toward your professional goals, but you don't feel like your whole identity hinges on your job
• You're taking your vacation days (and using your sick days when you need them)
• You're taking advantage of any work-life benefits your employer offers, like gym memberships, flexible scheduling, and childcare vouchers

Remember that work-life balance isn't something you can just check off your to-do list. It’s only natural that the demands of your job and outside life shift and change over time. That means that what you need to keep the balance will change over time.

"With a good work-life balance, a person is less likely to be rigid with their schedule," Sangmeister says. "Instead, they are able to be flexible and can adapt to include demands that may come up professionally or personally without disrupting the feeling of balance."

To figure out if you have a good work-life balance, think about what's most important to you. What helps you to feel your best? Are you taking care of yourself personally and professionally? Are you managing your stress and watching for signs of burnout?

If you're struggling to find a balance between work and the rest of your life, it might be time to have a conversation with your supervisor. This includes work-life benefits like hybrid, flexible, or remote work. Flextime, alternative work schedules, child care options, and access to mental health services are important work-life benefits employers offer to attract employees. 

There are things that your employer can do to help foster a better work-life balance. It's something that benefits them as well. Research has shown that workers with better work-life balance are more satisfied with their jobs , perform better at work, and are more committed to their organizations.

A conversation with your employer might help you find ways to work together to make things more manageable. This might involve reprioritizing your tasks, delegating some work to others, hiring additional help, or allowing you to work remotely when needed.

Unfortunately, these aren't always options, depending on the nature of your profession or your role in the workplace. In many cases, making a change hinges on how you approach your job. It might mean changing your priorities, delegating tasks at home, or letting your colleagues know you can no longer respond to work-related problems during your downtime.

It's also important to be aware of your legal rights. If you need certain accommodations because you are pregnant or have a disability, these needs may be protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

This includes protections if you are dealing with depression , anxiety , or another mental health condition. (You will need to have your condition diagnosed by your doctor, and you may need to provide documentation for your employer when you request an accommodation.)

How to Ask Your Boss for Better Work-Life Balance

Schedule a time to talk to your employer and tell them what you plan to discuss. During your meeting, explain your problem, and share your ideas for how you think you can work together to resolve the issue. 

If you've been overwhelmed by your workload and putting in too many hours, you might suggest redistributing some of your tasks to other team members to help lighten the load. 

Remember to stay professional and show respect for your employer's needs. Reiterate your commitment, and explain that you think finding a better balance will help you feel more productive and satisfied with your job.

So what’s next if you feel like your work-life balance is in shambles? It's time to take a step back, figure out what is wrong, and make a plan to fix it. Your health literally depends on it.

Many studies have demonstrated that people who have more conflict between their work and non-work life are more likely to experience health problems, mental health conditions, and poor overall health outcomes.

Make a Plan

Bringing more balance to your life starts with figuring out what’s causing the problem in the first place. Are your work hours too long? Or are work obligations encroaching on your off-time? Do you feel like you have no control over your schedule? Or are you taking on too many demands and need some relief?

Creating a personalized plan for how you are going to tackle your work-life balance can help you figure out what's wrong and which strategies will be most effective .

Create Divisions Between Your Work and Non-Work Life

Flexible and remote work can be a great way to promote balance in your life, but it often blurs the lines between your personal and professional life. You may find yourself working longer than normal hours, catching up on work when you should be relaxing, or staying up late to answer those last few emails you forgot to send earlier. 

The problem is that, over time, there is a distinct lack of balance. Because you never feel like you have any mental space from your job, it starts to feel like you’re always working. Your home life becomes your work life.

If you are fully or partially remote, there are things you can do to help promote better work-life balance:

• Create a schedule : Figure out which hours you can work during the day and stick with it. Creating a regular schedule can help you feel more productive. “ Start your mornings off with routines and rituals that are grounded. If you start your day sprinting the moment your alarm goes off, that energy carries through the day and leads to burnout,” Sangmeister says.
• Get ready for work : While you don't need to wear a suit and tie to work from your home office (unless you want to), consider wearing something other than your favorite 'lounging around the house' outfit. Dressing professionally when you are working can help create a mental division between your job and your home life.
• Let other people know when you're offline : Use different communication tools to let others know when you are offline. For example, put your work hours on your Google Calendar, set your Slack availability to prevent notifications during your off-time, and set up out-of-office emails when you are on vacation.
• Plan activities during your non-work hours : Give yourself things to look forward to once you are off work. It might involve getting together with friends, but it can be as simple as preparing a nice meal and settling in to stream an episode of a series you’re watching.

Take Breaks

Taking breaks is also essential. This includes mini-breaks during the work day and periodic days off or vacations.

"Taking an intentional day off periodically is a great way to improve work-life balance,” Sangmeister explains. "On these intentional days off, don’t just tackle a to-do list and chores; instead, work on personal development and mindfulness."

She also recommends mini-vacations and tech-free weekends . Even scheduling a little tech-free time each day can be helpful.

Don't Work When You're Not at Work

It might sound obvious (and simple), but it can be harder to stick with than you might expect. When your workday is over, it needs to be over. That means no checking work emails, looking at notifications, or logging in to finish "one last thing." 

Even if all you're doing is reading your messages that you plan to work on tomorrow, you're letting your work interfere with your personal time. It creates pressure and stress that distracts you from feeling fully relaxed or completely present during non-work hours. 

Set boundaries around the hours you work and create no work zones. That means even when you have “free time,” you aren’t going to open your phone or laptop to do work at certain times or in certain places.

Know What Burnout Looks Like

When your work-life balance is seriously screwed up (i.e., you're spending every waking moment working, thinking about work, stressing about work, or dreading work), there's a good chance you're headed for burnout .

Being burned out is more than just being tired and unmotivated—it means you've reached a state where you feel so exhausted and empty that you can hardly cope with daily life, let alone care about work.

Signs of burnout can be physical, such as headaches, high blood pressure, stomach aches, and frequent illness. But they are also mental and include problems sleeping, depressed moods, loss of interest, fatigue, problems concentrating, and apathy .

If you’ve reached this point, it means you need to make serious changes to your work environment. That might mean taking time off or switching to a different position. Sometimes, it might even mean thinking about changing jobs altogether.

Consider Changing Jobs

So you’ve had a conversation (or more than one) with your boss, but they are refusing to offer any flexibility to make any changes that will help you feel better about your relationship with your job–what now? 

If poor work-life balance is taking a toll on your well-being and isn't something you can solve on your own or by working with your employer, it might be time to consider taking a more serious step–changing your job altogether. 

Wait until you’ve had time to consider the problem and your options. Spend some time looking at other positions in your field (or even other fields if you’re ready to make a more significant change). Look at job review sites to see what other current and past employees are saying to learn more about what you might find in terms of work-life balance if you take a job with another company.

Finding a job you truly love can be a great way to feel more positively about the balance between your work and your outside life.

What This Means For You

Finding that perfect balance between your work and your life can seem like performing a tightrope act. If you're struggling, it might be worth talking to your boss about how they can help support your well-being (and foster greater job satisfaction and loyalty).  Remember: the goal is not to have a 50/50 balance—it's about finding a balance that feels good to you and, most importantly, works for you.

Taking steps to manage your time and boundaries is also essential. Make time for family, friends, hobbies, health, and self-care—the things that help you feel personally fulfilled outside of work. "Schedule, schedule, schedule," Sangmeister recommends. "Make these appointments just as important as any work meeting."

Gragnano A, Simbula S, Miglioretti M. Work-life balance: Weighing the importance of work-family and work-health balance . Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2020;17(3):907. doi:10.3390/ijerph17030907

Wong KP, Lee FCH, Teh PL, Chan AHS. The interplay of socioecological determinants of work-life balance, subjective wellbeing and employee wellbeing . Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2021;18(9):4525. doi:10.3390/ijerph18094525

Sirgy MJ, Lee D-J. Work-life balance: An integrative review . Appl Res Qual Life . 2018;13:229–254. doi: 10.1007/s11482-017-9509-8

Borowiec AA, Drygas W. Work-life balance and mental and physical health among Warsaw specialists, managers and entrepreneurs . Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2022;20(1):492. doi:10.3390/ijerph20010492

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Essay on Hard Work

500 words essay on  hard work.

Hard work is an essential thing we all need in life. It is impossible to achieve greatness without working hard. In other words, an idle person cannot gain anything if they wish to sit and wait for something else. On the other hand, one who keeps working hard constantly will definitely gain success in life and this is exactly what essay on hard work will elaborate upon.

Importance of Hard Work

Hard work is important and history has proved it time and again. The great Edison used to work for many hours a day and he dozed off on his laboratory table only with his books as his pillow.

Similarly, the prime minister of India, late Pt. Nehru used to work for 17 hours a day and seven days a week. He did not enjoy any holidays. Our great leader, Mahatma Gandhi worked round the clock to win freedom for our country.

Thus, we see that hard work paid off for all these people. One must be constantly vigil to work hard as it can help you achieve your dreams. As we say, man is born to work. Just like steel, he shines in use and rusts in rest.

When we work hard in life, we can achieve anything and overcome any obstacle. Moreover, we can also lead a better life knowing that we have put in our all and given our best to whatever work we are doing.

Key to Success

Hard work is definitely the key to success. What we earn by sweating our brow gives us greater happiness than something we get by a stroke of luck. As humans, we wish to achieve many things in life.

These things need hard work to be able to come true. Poverty is not the curse but idealness is. When we waste our time, time will also waste us. Hard work can help anyone achieve success. Great people were born in cottages but died in palaces.

Thus, it shows how through great work one can get the key to success. When you start working hard, you will notice changes in your life. You will become more disciplined and focused on your work.

Moreover, you will start seeing results within a short time. It is nothing but proof that when you work hard, things like determination, focus, concentration, come automatically to you. As a result, nothing will stop you from achieving success .

Success is not just someone being famous and rich in life. When you work hard and lead a comfortable life filled with love that is also a success. Hard work must not limit to work but also your personal life. When you put in hard work in work and relationships, life will prosper.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Hard Work

If we get the determination and focus, we can all work hard for a better future. It is important to concentrate as it ensures our work is finishing on time and in a better manner. Therefore, by working hard, we can increase our concentration power and open doors to new opportunities.

FAQ of Essay on Hard Work

Question 1: What is the importance of hard work?

Answer 1: Hard work teaches us discipline , dedication and determination. It is certainly important because it is only through hard work that we can achieve the goals of our life. Thus, we all must work hard.

Question 2: Does hard work lead to success?

Answer 2: Yes, hard work, together with the time will definitely lead to success. It is what can help you achieve a better life. Moreover, the harder you work, the more confident you will become in life.

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Success of Life is Based on Hard Work and Determination - IELTS Essay

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Model Essay 1

The determinants of success in life have long been debated, sparking diverse opinions. Some advocate that success is largely the result of hard work and determination, while others suggest that factors such as financial wealth and physical appearance play a crucial role. This essay will explore both viewpoints before concluding that success is typically influenced by a combination of both personal efforts and external circumstances.

On one hand, the ethos that “hard work and determination are the keys to success” is a widely held belief, supported by countless narratives of individuals overcoming adversity through sheer perseverance. Take, for example, the story of J.K. Rowling, who, despite numerous rejections, transformed her life and career by tirelessly refining and championing her Harry Potter series. This example underscores the idea that dedication and persistence can, indeed, lead to monumental achievements, emphasizing that personal effort should not be underestimated in the pursuit of success.

Conversely, it is undeniable that external factors such as socioeconomic status and aesthetic appeal can significantly shape one’s opportunities and, consequently, one’s success. For instance, research indicates that individuals deemed attractive are more likely to be hired and promoted, which can lead to greater career success. Similarly, coming from a wealthy background can afford individuals access to superior education and professional networks, which often catalyse opportunities unavailable to their less affluent counterparts. These examples highlight how external factors can provide a platform from which individuals may leverage their hard work more effectively.

In synthesizing both perspectives, it becomes apparent that while hard work and determination are indispensable, their efficacy is frequently amplified or hindered by external conditions. An individual's background and appearance often dictate the initial opportunities available to them, which in turn can significantly influence the trajectory of their success.

In conclusion, it is clear that success is not solely the product of one’s efforts or circumstances but rather a complex interplay between the two. Acknowledging this interdependence is crucial in understanding the multifaceted nature of success. Therefore, while personal determination is invaluable, societal factors equally play a critical role in shaping one's ultimate achievements in life.

Model Essay 2

Numerous factors are intertwined in leading to the success of life. Some believe that hard work and determination is what makes individuals successful, while others think that different factors, such as wealth and appearance, are more vital to succeed. In my opinion, external factors are more crucial than one’s hard work and determination.

One of the most prominent opinions of what is required for success is hard work and determination. This idea is demonstrated through the saying in Japan that means “even if you have a diamond, you need to polish it every day, and if you did not do that, the diamond would just be an ordinary stone.” This illustrates that even if an individual is highly talented, he needs to continuously work hard with a robust determination to keep developing his skills and succeed ultimately. Moreover, without hard work, individuals cannot go beyond the limits that they set by themselves and grow, which are important in getting ahead of others and succeeding.

While hard work and determination plays an important role in one’s success, some people argue that other factors affect one’s life more significantly. Those factors include how wealthy the individuals are, since being rich widens the opportunities for individuals. For instance, my mother was born in a single parent household, meaning not having a substantial amount of money to be spent on educations. Thus, she had no choice but to go to the public school and could not go to the affluent schools, such as private schools, where the quality of education is higher. This exemplifies that it is difficult for individuals who are poor to even have an opportunity to study or work hard in a good environment for success. Aside from money, appearance also contributes to one’s success significantly. Particularly for occupations where individuals are required to speak or act in front of the public audiences, such as actors and news reporters, their appearances are one of the most crucial factors for employers to determine whether they hire the applicants. Therefore, to begin doing one’s best to succeed, a good appearance is significant for individuals.

It is undeniable that both the person’s ability to work hard and external factors affect the success of life; however, I am in complete concurrence with the notion that external conditions are what influence the success in our lives the most. This is because regardless of how determined the person is, he needs to have a certain amount of money and at least an average appearance to even acquire a chance to show his abilities.

In conclusion, it is safe to say that both hard work with determination and other important aspects are crucial to succeed, as they allow individuals to develop their skills and obtain opportunities, respectively. However, I firmly believe that external factors affect the success of life more by giving individuals chance to even attempt to succeed.

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On the Shortness of Life: Book Summary, Key Lessons, and Best Quotes

In his moral essay, On the Shortness of Life , Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and playwright, offers us an urgent reminder on the non-renewability of our most important resource: our time. It is a required reading for anyone who wishes to live to their full potential, and it is a manifesto on how to get back control of your life and live it to the fullest.

In fact, perhaps Seneca’s most famous quote comes from this essay:

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.

Seneca urges us to examine the problems that result in life seeming to pass by too quickly, such as ambition, giving all our time to others, and engaging in vice. He argues that we have truly lived only a short time because our lives were filled with business and stress. How do we regain our time back? It is by studying philosophy, working towards meaningful goals, and not putting off the enjoyment of life.

Before we continue with the essay’s key lessons, a bit of background: De Brevitate Vitae, as it is known in Latin, is in fact addressed to Paulinus. This is most likely Pompeius Paulinus, a knight of Arelate and historians date it around 49 AD. What we find in reading the essay is that Paulinus was praefectus annonae, or the official who superintended the grain supply of Rome. We see this when Seneca is imploring Paulinus to transition from taking stock of the grain supply to taking stock of his life.

And if you’re new to Stoic philosophy , here is a bit of background on Seneca (although you are welcome to read our longer profile ): Seneca was one of the three most important Stoic philosophers, along with Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus . He is also infamous for serving as an advisor to Nero, one of the most cruel emperors. He is best known for this essay but also for his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, better known as Moral Letters to Lucilius , which we also highly recommend .

Below you will find key lessons from the essay, great quotes as well as our suggested translation to get. Just like Meditations by Marcus Aurelius , another imminently readable Stoic text, it will mark you forever if you let it.

Your Most Important Asset

“In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most extravagant.”

Does it make any sense to value anything above your only life? Seneca certainly doesn’t think so. Yet we find ourselves trading our only life away to make others like us, to get money (which we cannot use in the grave), and be lazy, distracted and entertained.

The main reason that we do so, Seneca argues, we waste so much of our time is because we forget that it is limited, that we are going to die .

Seneca scolds,

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”

Wasting time is the worst thing we can do to ourselves, but of course, there are many things and people that would take away our precious time. When Seneca says to be “miserly” with your time, he means it.

He implores us to be suspicious of any activity that will take a lot of time and be prepared to defend ourselves against unworthy pursuits.

It is with a similar reminder that Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius would urge himself in his Meditations , realizing the limited amount of time we have: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” For that very reason we have created our memento mori (“remember that you will die”) medallion , a physical reminder to carry that sense of urgency in one’s pocket and not waste a second.

How Little Is Left Over For You

Seneca uses the example of highly successful Romans to demonstrate that great achievement comes at a high price: a life that rushes by, filled with obligations and empty of leisure. Seneca mentions that Augustus Caesar, considered one of the greatest Romans of all time, constantly wished aloud for a break from his many duties and desperately longed to live a leisurely life.

Seneca explains:

“This was the sweet, even if vain, consolation with which he would gladden his labors—that he would one day live for himself.”

Augustus spent his life in directing conquests, but ultimately did not even have control of his own life, because he was not free to use his time how he wanted. Seneca wanted to demonstrate that the greatness men strive for can be a horrible trap, an overwhelming river of responsibilities that washes away the only life we get. Seneca is making a powerful claim—it would be better to live as you choose than to rule the world.

The great Roman politician, speaker, and writer, Marcus Cicero, considered himself a prisoner in his large and luxurious home, simply because of his many obligations. He complained about the life he had, a life that many others surely envied, and one that certainly had potential to be enjoyable. Seneca is critical of Cicero’s complaint of being a prisoner, claiming that no Stoic could ever be a prisoner since he possesses himself in any circumstance, being above despairing about one’s fate. This is a brief return to the prescription of philosophy, especially Stoic philosophy, for the problem of a life that can seem to rush by uncontrollably while we scramble to do our work and please others.

How to Live With Duty and Purpose

Seneca believes it is important to make room for leisure in life, but a life of pure leisure is considered meaningless. He speaks of people who never have to lift a finger and have unlearned basic human functions as a status symbol, something that still occurs in our time. He says of such a man, “He is sick, nay, he is dead.” Purposeful living is required to truly live, as long as it is a purpose that one owns and controls.

Seneca is also critical of another type of excessive luxury, that concerned with making a show of everything and being fancy. He calls people who pursue this “idly preoccupied” and thusly wasting their only lives on vain pursuits. He condemns those concerned about the appearance of their hair, which could be extended to anyone who fusses over their looks, and claims they are not truly at leisure. By focusing on how we look, we are wasting our most precious resource of all, time.

There are endless other distractions this lesson can be applied to, especially in modern times, where we invest a lot of life force in our presence on social media. An interesting way to conceptualize this is to think of the screen sucking your soul away while you browse Twitter and Facebook, or while you watch TV. Since our time is our only life, this is not an exaggeration.

Seneca is essentially prompting us to question our lives and ask: What proof do I have that I’m really alive? Many of us are living what might as well be considered a life of mere existence: lazing around and wasting our potential. But Seneca defines actual living as being in control of yourself and either enjoying yourself meaningfully and working towards goals that are important to you. He compares how most of us seem to live to a boat that has never left the harbor:

“For what if you should think that that man had had a long voyage who had been caught by a fierce storm as soon as he left harbor, and, swept hither and thither by a succession of winds that raged from different quarters, had been driven in a circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but much tossing about.”

Summary & Key Takeaways

The most important lesson of On the Shortness of Life of course is that we need to value our time and avoid wasting it at all costs. Sure, we understand this intellectually but how many of us can actually say they truly live? As Maria Popova from Brain Pickings would observe , the essay is “a poignant reminder of what we so deeply intuit yet so easily forget and so chronically fail to put into practice.”

There is no shortage of things that take away our time and we must guard against them. To live this lesson, practice saying “No!” to many of the time-wasting things that you do, like trying to impress people or staring at a screen. Consider whether your potential actions are virtuous, will truly benefit you, and whether they are worthy of making up your only life. If not, commit to turning it down, even if it might cause others to be displeased with you.

The lessons from On the Shortness of Life urge us to take stock of how we have lived so far, and to count the time that has been truly lived, as opposed to filled with unworthy busyness and distractions.

What you can start doing today is to practice the Stoic art of journaling and start reflecting on how you spend each and every day. To borrow from Seneca, his favorite time to journal was in the evenings. When darkness had fallen and his wife had gone asleep, he explained to a friend, “I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.” Then he would go to bed, finding that “the sleep which follows this self-examination” was particularly sweet.

The final lesson we should take away from Seneca’s work, and a theme that is constant for the Stoics in general , is that we need to remember that we could die at any moment, and that barring some massive medical breakthrough, we have at most a few more decades left to live. We should find a way to remind ourselves every day that we are going to die, perhaps by placing Sticky notes in places we will see every day. You might feel like you don’t forget that you’re going to die, but do you think about on a regular basis? Does it inform your decision-making? Most people can’t say yes to that, so we must do a little work to make sure we can.

10 Best Seneca Quotes from On The Shortness of Life

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.”

“You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire”

“They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.”

“There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living.”

“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today… The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”

‘“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”

“Even though you seize the day, it still will flee; therefore, you must vie with time’s swiftness in the speed of using it, and, as from a torrent that rushes by and will not always flow, you must drink quickly.”

“Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They annex every age to their own; all the years that have gone before them are an addition to their store.”

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.”

“The part of life we really live is small. For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.”

Cicero said that he was “half a prisoner.” But, in very truth, never will the wise man resort to so lowly a term, never will he be half a prisoner—he who always possesses an undiminished and stable liberty, being free and his own master and towering over all others. For what can possibly be above him who is above Fortune?”

Best Paid & Free Translation of On the Shortness of Life

We recommend Penguin’s On the Shortness of Life edition translated by C.D.N Costa which includes two other great short pieces of writing from Seneca. It is a beautifully designed edition and fits perfectly in your back pocket. You can also read the essay for free online here , a translation by John W. Basore.

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The Better Good Life: An Essay on Personal Sustainability

Imagine a cherry tree in full bloom, its roots sunk into rich earth and its branches covered with thousands of blossoms, all emitting a lovely fragrance and containing thousands of seeds capable of producing many more cherry trees. The petals begin to fall, covering the ground in a blanket of white flowers and scattering the seeds everywhere.

Some of the seeds will take root, but the vast majority will simply break down along with the spent petals, becoming part of the soil that nourishes the tree — along with thousands of other plants and animals.

Looking at this scene, do we shake our heads at the senseless waste, mess and inefficiency? Does it look like the tree is working too hard, showing signs of strain or collapse? Of course not. But why not?

Well, for one thing, because the whole process is beautiful, abundant and pleasure producing: We enjoy seeing and smelling the trees in bloom, we’re pleased by the idea of the trees multiplying (and producing delicious cherries ), and everyone for miles around seems to benefit in the process.

The entire lifecycle of the cherry tree is rewarding, and the only “waste” involved is an abundant sort of nutrient cycling that only leads to more good things.

The entire lifecycle of the cherry tree is rewarding, and the only “waste” involved is an abundant sort of nutrient cycling that only leads to more good things. Best of all, this show of productivity and generosity seems to come quite naturally to the tree. It shows no signs of discontent or resentment — in fact, it looks like it could keep this up indefinitely with nothing but good, sustainable outcomes.

The cherry-tree scenario is one model that renowned designer and sustainable-development expert William McDonough uses to illustrate how healthy, sustainable systems are supposed to work. “Every last particle contributes in some way to the health of a thriving ecosystem,” he writes in his essay (coauthored with Michael Braungart), “The Extravagant Gesture: Nature, Design and the Transformation of Human Industry” (available at).

Rampant production in this scenario poses no problem, McDonough explains, because the tree returns all of the resources it extracts (without deterioration or diminution), and it produces no dangerous stockpiles of garbage or residual toxins in the process. In fact, rampant production by the cherry tree only enriches everything around it.

In this system and most systems designed by nature, McDonough notes, “Waste that stays waste does not exist. Instead, waste nourishes; waste equals food.”

If only we humans could be lucky and wise enough to live this way — using our resources and energy to such good effect; making useful, beautiful, extravagant contributions; and producing nothing but nourishing “byproducts” in the process.

If only we humans could be lucky and wise enough to live this way — using our resources and energy to such good effect; making useful, beautiful, extravagant contributions ; and producing nothing but nourishing “byproducts” in the process. If only our version of rampant production and consumption produced so much pleasure and value and so little exhaustion, anxiety, depletion and waste.

Well, perhaps we can learn. More to the point, if we hope to create a decent future for ourselves and succeeding generations, we must. After all, a future produced by trends of the present — in which children are increasingly treated for stress, obesity, high blood pressure and heart disease, and in which our chronic health problems threaten to bankrupt our economy  — is not much of a future.

We need to create something better. And for that to happen, we must begin to reconsider which parts of our lives contribute to the cherry tree’s brand of healthy vibrance and abundance, and which don’t.

The happy news is, the search for a more sustainable way of life can go hand in hand with the pursuit of a healthier, more rewarding life. And isn’t that the kind of life most of us are after?

In Search of Sustainability and Satisfaction

McDonough’s cherry-tree model represents several key principles of sustainability — including lifecycle awareness, no-waste nutrient cycling and a commitment to “it’s-all-connected” systems thinking (see “ See the Connection “). And it turns out that many of these principles can be usefully applied not just to natural resources and ecosystems, but to all systems — from frameworks for economic and industrial production to blueprints for individual and collective well-being.

For example, when we look at our lives through the lens of sustainability, we can begin to see how unwise short-term tradeoffs (fast food, skipped workouts, skimpy sleep, strictly-for-the-money jobs) produce waste (squandered energy and vitality, unfulfilled personal potential, excessive material consumption) and toxic byproducts (illness, excess weight , depression, frustration, debt).

We can also see how healthy choices and investments in our personal well-being can produce profoundly positive results that extend to our broader circles of influence and communities at large.

Conversely, we can also see how healthy choices and investments in our personal well-being can produce profoundly positive results that extend to our broader circles of influence and communities at large. When we’re  feeling our best and overflowing with energy and optimism, we tend to be of greater service and support to others. We’re clearer of mind, meaning we can identify opportunities to reengineer the things that aren’t working in our lives. We can also more fully appreciate and emphasize the things that are (as opposed to feeling stuck in a rut , down in the dumps, unappreciated or entitled to something we’re not getting).

When you look at it this way, it’s not hard to see why sustainability plays such an important role in creating the conditions of a true “ good life ”: By definition, sustainability principles discourage people from consuming or destroying resources at a greater pace than they can replenish them. They also encourage people to notice when buildups and depletions begin occurring and to correct them as quickly as possible.

As a result, sustainability-oriented approaches tend to produce not just robust, resilient individuals , but resilient and regenerative societies — the kind that manage to produce long-term benefits for a great many without undermining the resources on which those benefits depend. (For a thought-provoking exploration of how and why this has been true historically, read Jared Diamond’s excellent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed .)

The Good Life Gone Bad

So, what exactly is a “good life”? Clearly, not everyone shares the same definition, but most of us would prefer a life filled with experiences we find pleasing and worthwhile and that contribute to an overall sense of well-being.

We’d prefer a life that feels good in the moment, but that also lays the ground for a promising future — a life, like the cherry tree’s, that contributes something of value and that benefits and enriches the lives of others, or at least doesn’t cause them anxiety and harm.

Unfortunately, historically, our pursuit of the good life has focused on increasing our material wealth and upgrading our socioeconomic status in the short term (learn more at “ What Is Affluenza? “). And, in the big picture, that approach has not turned out quite the way we might have hoped.

For too many, the current version of “the good life” involves working too-long hours and driving too-long commutes. It has us worrying and running ourselves ragged.

For too many, the current version of “the good life” involves working too-long hours and driving too-long commutes. It has us worrying and running ourselves ragged, overeating to soothe ourselves, watching TV to distract ourselves, binge-shopping to sate our desire for more, and popping prescription pills to keep troubling symptoms at bay. This version of “the good life” has given us only moments a day with the people we love, and virtually no time or inclination to participate as citizens or community members.

It has also given us anxiety attacks; obesity; depression ; traffic jams; urban sprawl; crushing daycare bills; a broken healthcare system; record rates of addiction, divorce and incarceration; an imploding economy; and a planet in peril.

From an economic standpoint, we’re more productive than we’ve ever been. We’ve focused on getting more done in less time. We’ve surrounded ourselves with technologies designed to make our lives easier, more comfortable and more amusing.

Yet, instead of making us happy and healthy, all of this has left a great many of us feeling depleted, lonely, strapped, stressed and resentful. We don’t have enough time for ourselves, our loved ones, our creative aspirations or our communities. And in the wake of the bad-mortgage-meets-Wall-Street-greed crisis, much of the so-called value we’ve been busy creating has seemingly vanished before our eyes, leaving future generations of citizens to pay almost inconceivably huge bills.

The conveniences we’ve embraced to save ourselves time have reduced us to an unimaginative, sedentary existence that undermines our physical fitness and mental health and reduces our ability to give our best gifts.

Meanwhile, the quick-energy fuels we use to keep ourselves going ultimately leave us feeling sluggish, inflamed and fatigued. The conveniences we’ve embraced to save ourselves time have reduced us to an unimaginative, sedentary existence that undermines our physical fitness and mental health and reduces our ability to give our best gifts. (Not sure what your best gift is? See “ Play to Your Strengths ” for more.)

Our bodies and minds are showing the telltale symptoms of unsustainable systems at work — systems that put short-term rewards ahead of long-term value. We’re beginning to suspect that the costs we’re incurring could turn out to be unacceptably high if we ever stop to properly account for them, which some of us are beginning to do.

Accounting for What Matters

Defining the good life in terms of productivity, material rewards and personal accomplishment is a little like viewing the gross domestic product (GDP) as an accurate measurement of social and economic progress.

In fact, the GDP is nothing more than a gross tally of products and services bought and sold, with no distinctions between transactions that enhance well-being and transactions that diminish it, and no accounting for most of the “externalities” (like losses in vitality, beauty and satisfaction) that actually have the greatest impact on our personal health and welfare.

We’d balk if any business attempted to present a picture of financial health by simply tallying up all of its business activity — lumping income and expense, assets and liabilities, and debits and credits together in one impressive, apparently positive bottom-line number (which is, incidentally, much the way our GDP is calculated).

Yet, in many ways, we do the same kind of flawed calculus in our own lives — regarding as measures of success the gross sum of the to-dos we check off, the salaries we earn, the admiration we attract and the rungs we climb on the corporate ladder.

But not all of these activities actually net us the happiness and satisfaction we seek, and in the process of pursuing them, we can incur appalling costs to our health and happiness. We also make vast sacrifices in terms of our personal relationships and our contributions to the communities, societies and environments on which we depend.

This is the essence of unsustainability , the equivalent of a cherry tree sucking up nutrients and resources and growing nothing but bare branches, or worse — ugly, toxic, foul-smelling blooms. So what are our options?

Asking the Right Questions

In the past several years, many alternative, GDP-like indexes have emerged and attempted to more accurately account for how well (or, more often, how poorly) our economic growth is translating to quality-of-life improvements.

Measurement tools like the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), developed by Redefining Progress, a nonpartisan public-policy and economic think tank, factor in well-being and quality-of-life concerns by considering both positive and negative impacts of various products and services. They also measure more impacts overall (including impacts on elements of “being” and “doing” vs. just “having”). And they evaluate whether various financial expenditures represent a net gain or net loss — not just in economic terms, but also in human, social and ecological ones (see “Sustainable Happiness,” below).

Perhaps it’s time to consider our personal health and well-being in the same sort of broader context — distinguishing productive activities from destructive ones, and figuring the true costs and unintended consequences of our choices into the assessment of how well our lives are working.

To that end, we might begin asking questions like these:

• Where, in our rush to accomplish or enjoy “more” in the short run, are we inadvertently creating the equivalent of garbage dumps and toxic spills (stress overloads, health crises, battered relationships, debt) that will need to be cleaned up later at great (think Superfund) effort and expense?
• Where, in our impatience to garner maximum gains in personal productivity, wealth or achievement in minimum time, are we setting the stage for bailout scenarios down the road? (Consider the sacrifices endured by our families, friends and colleagues when we fall victim to a bad mood, much less a serious illness or disabling health condition.)
• Where, in an attempt to avoid uncertainty, experimentation or change , are we burning through our limited and unrenewable resource of time (staying at jobs that leave us depleted, for example), rather than striving to harness our bottomless stores of purpose-driven enthusiasm (by, say, pursuing careers or civic duties of real meaning)?
• Where are we making short-sighted choices or non-choices (about our health, for example) that sacrifice the resources we need (energy, vitality, clear focus) to make progress and contributions in other areas of our lives?

In addition to these assessments, we can also begin imagining what a better alternative would look like:

• What might be possible if we embraced a different version of the good life — the kind of good life in which the vast majority of our choices both feel good and do good?
• What if we took a systems view of our life , acknowledging how various inputs and outputs play out (for better or worse) over time? What if we fully considered how those around us are affected by our choices now and in the long term?
• What if we embraced more choices that honor our true nature, that gave us more opportunities to use our talents and enthusiasms in the service of a higher purpose?

One has to wonder how many of our health and fitness challenges would evaporate under such conditions — how many compensatory behaviors (overeating, hiding out, numbing out) would simply no longer have a draw.

How many health-sustaining behaviors would become easy and natural choices if each of us were driven by a strong and joyful purpose , and were no longer saddled with the stress and dissatisfaction inherent in the lives we live now?

Think about the cherry-tree effect implicit in such a scenario: each of us getting our needs met, fulfilling our best potential, living at full vitality, and contributing to healthy, vital, sustainable communities in the process.

If it sounds a bit idealistic, that’s probably because it describes an ideal distant enough from our current reality to provoke a certain amount of hopelessness. But that doesn’t mean it’s entirely unrealistic. In fact, it’s a vision that many people are increasingly convinced is the only kind worth pursuing.

Turning the Corner

Maybe it has something to do with how many of our social, economic and ecological systems are showing signs of extreme strain. Maybe it’s how many of us are sick and tired of being sick and tired — or of living in a culture where everyone else seems sick and tired. Maybe it’s the growing realization that no matter how busy and efficient we are, if our efforts don’t feed us in a deep way, then all that output may be more than a little misguided. Whatever the reason, a lot of us are asking: If our rampant productivity doesn’t make us happy, doesn’t allow for calm and creativity, doesn’t give us an opportunity to participate in a meaningful way — then, really, what’s the point?

These days, it seems that more of us are taking a keen interest in seeking out better ways, and seeing the value of extending the lessons of sustainability beyond the natural world and into our own perspectives on what the good life is all about.

In her book MegaTrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism , futurist Patricia Aburdene describes a hopeful collection of social and economic trends shaped by a large and influential subset of the American consuming public. What these 70 million individuals have in common, she explains, are some very specific values-driven behaviors — most of which revolve around seeking a better, deeper, more meaningful and sustainable quality of life (discover the four pillars or meaning at “ How to Build a Meaningful Life “).

[“Conscious Consumers” balance] short-term desires and conveniences with long-term well-being — not just their own, but that of their local and larger communities, and of the planet as a whole.

These “Conscious Consumers,” as Aburdene characterizes them, are more carefully weighing material and economic payoffs against moral and spiritual ones. They are balancing short-term desires and conveniences with long-term well-being — not just their own, but that of their local and larger communities, and of the planet as a whole. They are acting, says Aburdene, out of a sort of “enlightened self-interest,” one that is deeply rooted in concerns about sustainability in all its forms.

“Enlightened self-interest is not altruism,” she explains. “It’s self-interest with a wider view. It asks: If I act in my own self-interest and keep doing so, what are the ramifications of my choices? Which acts — that may look fine right now — will come around and bite me and others one year from now? Ten years? Twenty-five years?”

In other words, Conscious Consumers are not merely consumers, but engaged and concerned individuals who think in terms of lifecycles, who perceive the subtleties and complexities of interconnected systems .

As John Muir famously said: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” Just as the cherry tree is tethered in a complex ecosystem of relationships, so are we.

Facing Reality

When we live in a way that diminishes us or weighs us down — whether as the result of poor physical health and fitness, excess stress and anxiety, or any compromise of our best potential — we inevitably affect countless other people and systems whose well-being relies on our own.

For example, if we don’t have the time and energy to make food for ourselves and our families, we end up eating poorly, which further diminishes our energy, and may also result in our kids having behavior or attention problems at school, undermining the quality of their experience there, and potentially creating problems for others.

As satisfaction and well-being go down, need and consumption go up.

If we skimp on sleep and relaxation in order to “get more done,” we court illness and depression, risking both our own and others’ productivity and happiness in the process and diminishing the creativity with which we approach challenges.

At the individual level, unsustainable choices create strain and misery. At the collective level, they do the same thing, with exponential effect. Because, when not enough of us are living like thriving cherry trees, cycles of scarcity (rather than abundance) ensue. Life gets harder for everyone. As satisfaction and well-being go down, need and consumption go up. Our sense of “enough” becomes distorted.

Taking Full Account

The basic question of sustainability is this: Can you keep doing what you’re doing indefinitely and without ill effect to yourself and the systems on which you depend — or are you (despite short-term rewards you may be enjoying now, or the “someday” relief you’re hoping for) on a likely trajectory to eventual suffering and destruction?

When it comes to the ecology of the planet, this question has become very pointed in recent years. But posed in the context of our personal lives, the question is equally instructive: Are we living like the cherry tree — part of a sustainable and regenerative cycle — or are we sucking up resources, yet still obsessed with what we don’t have? Are we continually generating new energy, vitality, generosity and personal potential , or wasting it?

We can work just so hard and consume just so much before we begin to experience both diminishing personal returns and increasing degenerative costs.

The human reality, in most cases, isn’t quite as pretty as the cherry tree in full bloom. We can work just so hard and consume just so much before we begin to experience both diminishing personal returns and increasing degenerative costs. And when enough of us are in a chronically diminished state of well-being, the effect is a sort of social and moral pollution — the human equivalent of the greenhouse gasses that threaten our entire ecosystem.

Accounting for these soft costs, or even recognizing them as relevant externalities, is not something we’ve been trained to do well. But all that is changing — in part, because many of us are beginning to realize that much of what we’ve been sold in the name of “progress” is now looking like anything but. And, in part, because we’re starting to believe that not only might there be a better way, but that the principles for creating it are staring us right in the face.

By making personal choices that respect the principles of sustainability, we can interrupt the toxic cycles of overconsumption and overexertion. Ultimately, when confronted with the possibility of a better quality of life and more satisfying expression of our potential, the primary question becomes not just can we continue living the way we have been, but perhaps just as important, why would we even want to ?

If the approach we’ve been taking appears likely to make us miserable (and perhaps extinct), then it makes sense to consider our options. How do we want to live for the foreseeable and sustainable future, and what are the building blocks for that future? What would it be like to live in a community where most people were overflowing with vitality and looking for ways to be of service to others?

While no one expert or index or council claims to have all the answers to that question, when it comes to discerning the fundamentals of the good life, nature conveniently provides most of the models we need. It suggests a framework by which we can better understand and apply the principles of sustainability to our own lives. Now it’s up to us to apply them.

Make It Sustainable

Here are some right-now changes you can make to enhance and sustain your personal well-being:

1. Rethink Your Eating.

Look beyond meal-to-meal concerns with weight. Aim to eat consciously and selectively in keeping with the nourishment you want to take in, the energy and personal gifts you want to contribute, and the influence you want to have on the world around you.

To that end, you might start eating less meat, or fewer packaged foods, or you might start eating regularly so that you have enough energy to exercise (and so that your low blood sugar doesn’t negatively affect your mood and everyone around you).

You also might start packing your lunch, suggests money expert Vicki Robin: Not only will you have more control over what and how you eat, but the money you’ll save over the course of a career can amount to a year’s worth of work. “Bringing your lunch saves you a year of your life,” she says.

2. Set a Regular Bedtime

Having a target bedtime can help you get the sleep you need to be positive and productive, and to avoid becoming depleted and depressed. Research confirms that adequate sleep is essential to clear thinking, balanced mood, healthy metabolism, strong immunity, optimal vitality and strong professional performance.

Research also shows that going to bed earlier provides a higher quality of rest than sleeping in, so get your hours at the start of the night. By taking care of yourself in this simple way, you lay the groundwork for all kinds of regenerative (vs. depleting) cycles.

3. Own Your Outcomes

If there are parts of your life you don’t like — parts that feel toxic, frustrating or wasteful to you — be willing to trace the outcomes back to their origins, including your choices around self-care , seeking help, balancing priorities and sticking to your core values.

Also examine the full range of outputs and impacts: What waste or damage is occurring as a result of this area of unresolved challenge? Who else and what else in your life might be paying too-high a price for the scenario in question? If you’re unsure about whether or not a choice or an activity you’re involved in is sustainable, ask yourself the following questions:

• Given the option, would I do or choose this again? Would I do it indefinitely?
• How long can I keep this up, and at what cost — not just to me, but to the other people and systems I care about?
• What have I sacrificed to get here; what will it take for me to continue? Are the rewards worth it, even if the other areas of my life suffer?

Sustainable Happiness

Not all growth and productivity represent progress, particularly if you consider happiness and well-being as part of the equation. The growing gap between our gross domestic product and Genuine Progress Indicator (as represented below) suggests we could be investing our resources with far happier results.

Data source: Redefining Progress, rprogress.org . Chart graphic courtesy of Yes! magazine.

Learn more about the most reliable, sustainable sources of happiness and well-being in the Winter 2009 issue of Yes! magazine, available at www.yesmagazine.org .

Learning From Nature

What can we learn from ecological sustainability about the best ways to balance and sustain our own lives? Here are a few key lessons:

• Everything is in relationship with everything else. So overdrawing or overproducing in one area tends to negatively affect other areas. An excessive focus on work can undermine your relationship with your partner or kids. Diminished physical vitality or low mood can affect the quality of your work and service to others.
• What comes around goes around. Trying to “cheat” or “skimp” or “get away with something” in the short term generally doesn’t work because the true costs of cheating eventually become painfully obvious. And very often the “cleanup” costs more and takes longer than it would have to simply do the right thing in the first place.
• Waste not, want not. Unpleasant accumulations or unsustainable drains represent opportunities for improvement and reinvention. Nature’s models of nutrient cycling show us that what looks like waste can become food for a process we simply haven’t engaged yet: Anxiety may be nervous energy that needs to be burned off, or a nudge to do relaxation and self-inquiry exercises that will churn up new insights and ideas. Excess fat may be fuel for enjoyable activities we’ve resisted doing or haven’t yet discovered — or a clue that we’re hungry for something other than food. The clutter in our homes may represent resources that we haven’t gotten around to sharing. Look for ways to put waste and excess to work, and you may discover all kinds of “nutrients” just looking for attention. (See “ The Emotional Toll of Clutter “.)

The Sustainable Self

Connie Grauds, RPh, is a pharmacist who combines her Western medical training with shamanic teachings, and in her view, we get caught in wearying patterns primarily because of fear . “Energy-depleting thoughts and feelings underlie energy-depleting habits,” Grauds writes in her book  The Energy Prescription , cowritten with Doug Childers. She says that we often burn ourselves out because we’re unconsciously afraid of what will happen if we don’t.

Grauds uses the shamanic term “susto” to describe our anxious response to external situations we can’t control — the traffic jam, the work deadline, the pressure to buy stuff we don’t really need. “Susto” triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, which encourages short-term, unconscious reactions to stress. When we shift to a more internal focus, tuning in to our body’s physical and emotional signals more reflectively, we act from what Grauds calls our “sustainable self.” She says the sustainable self can be accessed anytime with a simple four-step process:

• Take a deep breath ;
• Feel your body;
• Notice your thoughts, and then;
• Recognize that you are connected to a larger network of energy .

“A sustainable self recognizes and embraces its interdependent relationship to life,” she says, explaining that when we get our energy from controlling external circumstances we’re bound to collapse eventually, but when we’re connected to our internal reserves, we can be much more effective. “By consistently doing things that replenish us and not doing things that needlessly deplete us,” Grauds writes, “we access and conduct the energy we need to make and sustain positive changes and function at peak levels.”

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• School Education /

Essay on Life for Students in English: 100 Words, 200 Words, 350 Words

• Updated on  
• Apr 12, 2024

Life is a culmination of moments, a blend of laughter and tears, victory and challenges. From the moment we take our first breath to the day, we draw our last. It is a journey filled with countless experiences, lessons, and emotions. From the tiniest of creatures to the tallest of trees, every living being is a part of this incredible journey. In this blog, we will explore the multifaceted essence of life through three unique essays.

Also Read : Essay on My Aim in Life

Table of Contents

• 1 Sample Essay on Life in 100 words
• 2 Sample Essay on Life in 200 words
• 3 Sample Essay on Life in 350 words

Sample Essay on Life in 100 words

Life is a collection of stories etched in time, each page filled with lessons that have been learned. The journey of life is a rollercoaster, with peaks of joy and valleys of despair. It teaches us self-reliance, adaptability, and the importance of cherishing every passing second.

As we navigate through unknown paths, we discover the true essence of our being – the passions that fuel us and the relationships that sustain us. Life is a gift, a canvas upon which we paint our purpose. Let us embrace each passing day, for they collectively make the masterpiece that is our life.

Sample Essay on Life in 200 words

Life is a river that flows with an ever-changing current, carrying us through seasons of growth and moments of introspection. It presents us with opportunities to evolve, to change ourselves, and emerge as a new. Life is a precious gift that surrounds us with wonders every day. We wake up to the warmth of the sun, the chirping of birds, and the love of our family. Each moment teaches us something valuable – to be kind, to learn, and to grow. 

As we play, study, and share, we make memories that become the colours of our life’s canvas. Life is about enjoying the little things – a smile, a hug, a blooming flower. The challenges we face are sometimes difficult but are also stepping stones that move and motivate us toward self-discovery. Life’s journey is not about reaching a destination, but about following the purpose and the richness of the path itself.

Also Read: Essay on My Hobby

Sample Essay on Life in 350 words

Life is a journey of discovery, where we encounter moments both big and small that shape our identity. From the joyful laughter of childhood to the trials of adolescence, each phase of life imparts unique lessons.

Each chapter unveils a new facet of our identity, inviting us to delve deeper into the essence of who we are. As we grow, we learn that life isn’t just about happiness; it’s about resilience in the face of difficulties. Challenges, like puzzles, help us develop problem-solving skills and the ability to adapt. Friends and family accompany us on this journey, providing companionship, support, and love.

Life, a masterpiece painted by time, is about making choices, experiences, and opportunities. In the early years, life is a playground of curiosity, where we explore the world with wonder-filled eyes. Learning becomes our companion, and mistakes are stepping stones to growth. 

Adolescence brings a whirlwind of change – physical, emotional, and psychological. It’s a time of self-discovery, as we unfold our passions, talents, and values. Amidst this transformation, friendships blossom, leaving an indelible mark on our hearts. Responsibilities increase, and we navigate through the maze of choices, from careers to relationships. Life becomes full of ambitions , dreams, setbacks, and achievements. Failures and successes become part of our narrative, driving us to strive harder and reach higher. 

In the sunset years, life’s pace may slow, but its essence deepens. Memories become treasures, and experiences turn into life lessons. Family becomes a stronghold of support, and the wisdom garnered over the years becomes a guiding light. Reflection becomes a companion, and gratitude fills our hearts as we look back on the incredible journey we’ve travelled.

In conclusion, life is a journey that encompasses the spectrum of human existence. From the innocence of childhood to the wisdom of old age, every phase contributes to our growth and understanding. Through challenges and triumphs, connections, and solitude, we weave a tale unique to ours. So, let’s embrace life’s twists and turns, for they shape us into the individuals we are meant to be.

Also Read: 100+ Rumi Quotes on Love, Life, Nature & the Universe

Ans. When children and students write a life essay, they have the opportunity to contemplate the wonder and significance of their being.

Ans. The pursuit of happiness is so connected in entirety that it is woven into our life, as we seek fulfillment. It is in the phase of low that we often find the strength to rise, and in the quiet moments of being ourselves, we hear our truest desires. 

Ans. A life story is a valuable personal account of both personal and professional experiences that are shared by the individual.

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For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu.

Rajshree Lahoty

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Essay on Fuel

List of essays on fuel in english, essay on fuel – essay 1 (100 words), essay on fuel – essay 2 (250 words), essay on fuel – essay 3 (300 words), essay on fuel – essay 4 (400 words), essay on fuel – essay 5 (500 words), essay on fuel – essay 6 (750 words), essay on fuel – essay 7 (1000 words).

Introduction:

Fuel is anything which generates energy to do work. It is a substance which produces heat, chemical or nuclear energy. There are different kinds of fuels available to mankind in order to perform different work. Fuels are a limited type of resource and therefore should be put to optimum use.

Importance in Daily Life and Economy:

Fuels are very important for many of our activities. The vehicles we drive run on petrol, diesel or compressed natural gas. The gas we use for burning a stove is liquefied petroleum gas. All things starting from small household work to large activities such as running planes, ships and industrial plants, fuel is required almost everywhere. Due to its numerous uses, it is a basic part of the worldwide economy. That is why fuel is one the most important natural resources on the Earth.

There is no energy release without fuel, or at least that is how we like to conceptualize things. The matter of fact is that a lot of things can be considered fuel because we have mastered the ability to release energy through the manipulation of chemical reactions between organic and inorganic matter. From the first use of fire to the development of nuclear power plants fuel is one of the key components of what makes us human.

Conceptualizing Fuel:

When we think about fuel in technical terms, we notice that many things that surround us can be considered as such. The fact is that there are many objects or substances that we can burn and therefore use as fuel. We can burn wood, coal, paper, petrol and use it in some form or another to fuel for our ovens or engines. This fact also implies that we depend on fuel in our daily lives and without this technological advancement we use to create and manipulate energy there would be no humanity.

The Future of Fuel:

Having all of that in mind, there are many problems we are faced with when the future of fuel is considered. The fact is that the matter we burn or use in other types of chemical reactions as fuel is not infinite. There is a limit to what we can burn but there are energy flows that surround us like the sun and the wind that are harvested and used as fuel to power our future.

It takes millions and millions of year to produce fossil fuel like coal because they are produced using the fossilized remains of too many ancient plants and animals which decay under high pressure.

The Definition:

So, let us first see as to what can be categorized as a fuel. A fuel would be any kind of material which can react with otter substances and ends up releasing energy which, in turn, can be used for constructive work.

Initially, it was believed that the energy released should be chemical energy but with times the definition has modified to include nuclear energy and other energy forms too.

The fuel can be broadly categorized as three main types – solid, liquid and gaseous. Of course, each category has its own use to offer and it is upon us to make sure that we put the fuel to right use and do not exploit the natural ones unnecessarily.

The Problem:

However, what is pitiable is the fact that we have depleted a large amount of fossil fuel and their regeneration is not going to be quick. This is why the focus has recently shifted to the use of alternate fuel so that we could save the fossil fuel for the future generations. Further, there has been a lot of hue and cry regarding how the burning of fossil fuel tends to impact the global environment. The researchers have pinpointed that it is one of the leading cause of global warming owing to production of greenhouse gases.

The Solution:

The real solution lies in promoting the use of renewable and alternate source of energy and fuel. Bio fuel too has increased in popularity and they are being used for automotive transport as well. But once again, there is a debate regarding how carbon efficient the bio-fuel too really are!

The bottom-line remains the fact that consumption of fuel should be done keeping in mind the harmful impact on the environment.

Fuel is a substance that produces heat and/or light on burning. There are many types of fuels for performing different tasks. Just as every other thing on earth, fuels offer both advantages and disadvantages.

Use of Fuels:

Fuels are required for carrying out day to day tasks such as lighting, cooking, heating, running vehicle, generating electricity etc. Fuel is an integral part of our life and we cannot imagine our life without fuel. For example, vehicles – car to aeroplanes – run on petrol, diesel or CNG and wood, coal, gas etc., are used for cooking.

Types of Fuels:

Fuels can be in solid, liquid or gaseous forms. One fuel can be used for multiple tasks and for same task more than one fuel may be used. There are two broad categories of fuels – Bio Fuels and Fossil Fuels.

Bio fuels are fuels generated from plants, animal waste, municipal waste and waste from the food and agro industries. Some bio fuels are available in nature such as wood and cow dung cakes. The vegetable seeds and wastes are processed for the production of bio fuels for example, bio diesel is generated from algae or certain plant seeds; bio gas is produced from kitchen waste, animal waste or other organic waste. These are also called renewable fuels.

Fossil Fuels:

Fossil fuels are fuels generated by the changes that took place over millions of years on the remains of animals and plants. Fossil fuels are found on earth’s surface or underneath and have limited stock. These are also referred as non-renewable fuels. Due to increasing demand and limited supply, their cost is ever increasing.

Burning or using any type of fuel produces carbon dioxide and other harmful products that cause pollution. Some fuels create less pollution like CNG, while other cause more pollution like coal. The increasing pollution due to burning of fossil fuels is a major cause of global warming and climate change.

Conservation:

Changing lifestyle, supported by technology, has increased the fuel consumption manifolds. If we continue to use fossil fuels at this pace, these may last for few decades only. Therefore, we must reduce the use of fossil fuels and save such fuels to last longer for future generations. Fuels should not be wasted and more efficient machinery and appliances shall be built. Use of alternate sources of energy like wind, hydraulic, solar, tidal, geothermal and nuclear shall be increased.

Fuel is a substance that reacts with another substance for energy generation and doing work. In the contemporary period, these fuels govern our day to day activities. Fuels are juxtaposed with devices that store energy like battery, capacitors, spring etc. Fuel functions as a vital part to quench our energy requirement. Petroleum is the most commonly used fuel by humans on a daily basis from cooking to traveling to manufacturing.

There are various types of fuel classification. Based on their state of matter, fuels are classified as Solid fuels like wood and peat, liquid fuels like petroleum and gasoline and gaseous fuels like natural gases. Based on their source, the fuels are classified as physical fuels like solid propellant and electricity, chemical fuels like CNG and blast furnace gas, biofuels like biodiesel derived from biomass and nuclear fuels like radioactive uranium rods, etc.

The biofuels are further categorized into primary biofuels and secondary biofuels. The primary fuels are those which are used in an unprocessed form while the secondary biofuels need to be used after certain processing. Examples of biofuels are the green-diesel generated from green algae, biogas generated from animal waste and fat, etc.

Based on their availability, fuels are classified as renewable fuels and non-renewable fuels. This is a very important classification to know as this type has entered into the vicious cycle of environmental degradation, availability of fuel, depletion of fuel, and so on. Those fuels which can be replenished to the rate of usage are called the renewable source of fuels. This includes tidal energy, wind energy, etc. However, some fuels keep on depleting upon the exhaustive usage and nature can’t replenish those fuels. Examples include oil and petroleum, fossil fuels etc.

Conservation of Fuels:

The conservation of renewable and the non-renewable fuels are the need of the hour and this activity makes sense at various walks of life. For example, when we are standing at a traffic signal, it is advised to turn off your vehicle to avoid wastage of fuels. We can also decrease the speed to increase the fuel economy. We can minimize the brake usage in a vehicle. We can encourage vehicle pooling or use public transport whenever possible.

We must create campaigns and awareness about fuel conservation to people. Not only the non-renewable resources are depleted, but the renewable resources are also depleting because nature cannot replenish the resources at the speed they are dug out and utilized. Despite the renewability, if we continue to use the fuels at this rate, we will end up facing the depletion of fuels.

Conclusion:

Fuels are depleting at a faster rate from the earth’s surface. Most of the things that we rely upon on a daily basis to run our daily chores use up fuels. Fuel economy is a growing economy and gives a lucrative business, to begin with. However, owing to the earth’s carrying capacity, humans must reduce the exhaustive usage and extensive wastage of fuels so that our future generations to come can also use fuels.

Fuel can be said to be any form of material that reacts with another substance or material to ensure the release of energy in the form of heat energy and can used to perform work. Fuel used to be solely referred to as the materials that can release chemical energy, it has now started to be applied to different other sources that produce heat energy like nuclear energy through nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.

The fuel reactions led to a release of heat energy which is then converted through heat engines to mechanical energy. Sometimes, the heat can be used for industrial processes, cooking or warmth and also serves as a source of illumination through the combustion. The organisms also use fuels in their cells through a process commonly called cellular respiration; there is the oxidation of the organic molecules so that usable energy can be released.

The fuel source that is most commonly employed by human beings is hydrocarbons and other related molecules that contain oxygen even though some other materials and substances like metals that are radioactive are also employed. Fuels are quite different from the other devices and substances that store potential energy like the ones that release directly mechanical energy like reservoir water, air that is compressed, springs and flywheels or electrical energy such as capacitors and batteries.

The very first use and employment of fuel that is known, was the stick or wood combustion by the Homo erectus about two or three million years before now. Humans have derived fuel from animal fat or plants through most of our history as humans. A derivative of wood that is known as charcoal has been in use for more than 8,000 years now when it was used to melt metals. When the forests in Europe started to face serious depletion, charcoal was substituted with coke during the 1700s. We now use charcoal briquettes as fuel when we cook through barbecue.

The first time coal was used as a source of fuel in China about 3000 years ago. Chemical energy is usually released by combustion. The introduction and inception of the famed steam engine in the year 1769 in the region of the United Kingdom led to the use of coal as a very popular source of power. Locomotives and ships were also driven with the use of coal. London began using the gas that is gotten from coal as lighting on the streets around the 1800s. By the 1900s and 2000s, the major area where the coal was employed is the generation of electricity and by 2005, coal provided over 40% of the electrical supply of power all over the world.

During the period of industrial revolution, there was the rapid adoption of fossil fuels, mainly due to fossil fuels being more flexible and concentrated than other energy sources that are traditional like water power. Fossil fuels have become very important and vital component of our society today. A large majority of the countries we have today, generate power through the burning of fossil fuels. Now, we are beginning to look towards energy and fuel sources that are renewable. A good example of such renewable fuel is biofuels such as alcohols.

Types of Fuel:

We have primary two types of fuel in the world we live in today. They are chemical fuels and nuclear fuels.

1. Chemical Fuels:

These are the material or substances that react with substances and materials around them and then release energy majorly through the process known as combustion. The chemical bond of the particular fuels does not store the released chemical energy during combustion. The released chemical energy is actually stored in the double bonded molecule of oxygen which is very weak.

We can classify chemical fuels into two broad ways: first on the basis of the physical properties like a gas, liquid or solid. We can also classify fuels on the basis of the occurrence like natural fuel (primary) and artificial (secondary).

2. Nuclear Fuels:

This is any substance or material that can be consumed in order to produce nuclear energy. It is important to note that any form of matter can produce nuclear energy and act as nuclear fuel if put under conditions that are right and favourable. Almost every nuclear fuel is made up of heavy and rare fissile elements which can undergo nuclear fission. The striking of these fuels by neutrons causes them to emit neutrons when these matters are broken apart. Therefore, the process of nuclear energy production is a chain reaction that is self-sustaining.

Fuel is a substance that can be used to generate power or heat through combustion. Fuel use has been in existence since the evolution of mankind. Fuel was historically discovered though the use of wood and coal. Energy is the hallmark of industrialization. Fuels form the major source of energy and its production is dependent on the energy demands. Industrialization has been developed as it utilizes the different forms of energy. Fuel has remained a constant source of energy as it is easily accessible and it is vastly used. Both developing and developed countries use fuel in almost all their day to day activities. The rates at which fuel is being consumed continues to rise over the years. The rise in fuel consumption has been attributed to globalization, the increasing population and the advancements that are being made through technology. Common sources of fuel are conventional fuels, such as reserves of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. These conventional fuels are limited and non-renewable. Though fuels have been of great importance in industrialization world, there have been hazards associated to its combustion. Some of these hazards being deleterious to both humans and other living things in the environment.

Classification of Fuels:

Fuels can be classified into different types depending on their characteristics. There are two groups of fuels; one group is classifies based on occurrence which can be either natural e.g., wood and coal or prepared fuels e.g., charcoal whereas the second group is based on the physical state of the fuel which can be liquid e.g., petroleum, solid e.g., coal or gas e.g., natural gas.

Sources of Fuels:

Based on the classification of fuels, the sources differ with the type of fuel. There are natural sources and artificial sources. Natural sources of fuel occur freely in the environment and are discovered by humans so that they can be put it into use. An example of natural gas that is found naturally existing in air. Its main constituent is methane. Artificial sources of fuels are usually prepared by humans before use. An example is charcoal. Charcoal is fuel that is prepared from wood. The preparation process is specific but it involved combustion, which results in environmental pollution.

Uses of Fuel:

The uses of fuel rang from domestic to industrial based on the energy requirements. Fuel can be used in more ways than one. Domestic uses include heating and cooking. Natural gas is used in heating systems for both dryers and water. Cooking stoves are powered by natural gas in most of the homes. Natural gas is the most utilized source of fuel because of its efficiency and the minimal harm it causes on both the environment and humans.

Another use of fuel is transportation whereby fuels such as petroleum are used in vehicles to facilitate movement of goods and people. Fuels are also used in industries. Industries require the largest amount of energy compared to domestic uses because of the heavy activities like manufacturing, which consumes a sumptuous amount of energy.

Fuels are used to generate electricity and this results in an alternative source of fuel. There is commercial use of fuels like in restaurants and warehouses. All these sectors that require fuels are important in the development of a nation because they enable the expansion of fuel sector and generate income for the country.

Advantages and Disadvantages of using Fuel:

Fuel use has its own advantages and disadvantages depending on the types of fuels. Liquid fuels are easy to transport and store. However, liquid fuels produce bad odor, they are expensive, and they require special storage containers and are highly flammable and can be dangerous. The special storage are costly to acquire and maintain them.

Solid fuels have a low production cost since the processes are not complex, they are convenient to store without the risk for flammability among the dangers, and they are easy to transport. Although the production cost of solid fuels is low, the handling costs are high. Solid fuels produce ash content that is high especially after use of wood. The ash content is a pollutant to the environment. Ash causes soil pollution because its pH is disruptive to the normal pH in soil. The use of solid fuels in combustion is hard to control unlike liquid fuel whereby the control is simple. Solid fuel also consumesa a lot of space compared to other fuel forms.

Gaseous fuels are the most preferred type of fuel because they are clean to use. Gaseous fuels are easy to store and transport using pipelines without need of manual transportation. Gaseous fuels are environment friendly as they do not produce soot, smoke or ashes upon combustion. Impurities are minimal in gaseous fuels compared to thee other forms of fuel. Disadvantages of gaseous fuels is the requirement of large storage tanks. They are also highly flammable and pose a great danger to both the producer and the use.

In conclusion, fuel is widely used both domestically and in industries. Fuel can be useful in generating other sources of fuel which enables the running of the fuel industry. The uses of fuel differ based on the energy requirements and the types of fuel that are available. Forms of fuel are preferred based on affordability and convenience. Both natural sources and prepared sources of fuels are important in energy production. Environmental pollution has however become a major disadvantage of fuel use across the globe. The nature of fuels is combustion so that energy can be produced and utilized but in the process, pollutants end up in the environment and cause the disruption of the ecosystems. The uses of fuels have to be controllable so as to minimize environmental pollution. Solid fuel have been proven to be the major cause of environmental pollution because there is production of soot and ashes. All these products of combustion pollute the environment and are hazardous to human health and other living things in the environment. Fuels use is essential but so is the environment.

Energy , Fuel

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Guest Essay

I Don’t Write Like Alice Munro, but I Want to Live Like Her

By Sheila Heti

Ms. Heti is the author of the novels “Pure Colour,” “How Should a Person Be?” and, most recently, “Alphabetical Diaries.”

It is common to say “I was heartbroken to hear” that so-and-so died, but I really do feel heartbroken having learned about Alice Munro, who died on Monday.

As a writer, she modeled, in her life and art, that one must work with emotional sincerity and precision and concentration and depth — not on every kind of writing but on only one kind, the kind closest to one’s heart.

She has long been a North Star for many writers and was someone I have always felt guided by. We are very different writers, but I have kept her in mind, daily and for decades, as an example to follow (but failed to follow to the extent that she demonstrated it): that a fiction writer isn’t someone for hire.

A fiction writer isn’t someone who can write anything — movies, articles, obits! She isn’t a person in service to the magazines, to the newspapers, to the publishers or even to her audience. She doesn’t have to speak on the political issues of the day or on matters of importance to the culture right now but ought first and most to attend seriously to her task, which is her only task, writing the particular thing she was most suited to write.

Ms. Munro only ever wrote short stories — not novels, though she must have been pressured to. She died in a small town not too far from where she was born, choosing to remain close to the sort of people she grew up with, whom she remained ever curious about. Depth is wherever one stands, she showed us, convincingly.

Fiction writers are people, supposedly, who have things to say; they must, because they are so good with words. So people are always asking them: Can you say something about this or about this? But the art of hearing the voice of a fictional person or sensing a fictional world or working for years on some unfathomable creation is, in fact, the opposite of saying something with the opinionated and knowledgeable part of one’s mind. It is rather the humble craft of putting your opinions and ego aside and letting something be said through you.

Ms. Munro held to this division and never let the vanity that can come with being good with words persuade her to put her words just everywhere, in every possible way. Here was the best example in the world — in Canada, my own land — of someone who seemed to abide by classical artistic values in her choices as a person and in her choices on the page. I felt quietly reassured knowing that a hundred kilometers down the road was Alice Munro.

She was also an example of how a writer should be in public: modest, unpretentious, funny, generous and kind. I learned the lesson of generosity from her early. When I was 20 and was just starting to publish short stories, I sent her a fan letter. I don’t remember what my letter said. After a few months, I received a handwritten thank-you note from her in the mail. The fact that she replied at all and did so with such care taught me a lot about grace and consideration and has remained as a warmth within me since that day.

She will always remain for me, and for many others, a model of that grave yet joyous dedication to art — a dedication that inevitably informs the most important choices the artist makes about how to support that life. Probably Ms. Munro would laugh at this; no one knows the compromises another makes, especially when that person is as private as she was and transforms her trials into fiction. Yet whatever the truth of her daily existence, she still shines as a symbol of artistic purity and care.

I am grateful for all she gave to the world and for all the sacrifices she must have made to give it. I’m sorry to be here defying her example, but she was just too loved, and these words just came. Thank you, Alice Munro.

Sheila Heti is the author of the novels “Pure Colour,” “How Should a Person Be?” and, most recently, “Alphabetical Diaries.”

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