<p>In November I had a company meeting back that talked about the concept of an "integrated life".  I had some deeper internal processing than I expected coming out of that meeting that started the wheels churning on this post.  Then last week my mom shared a post from Kate Bowler about celebrating "limited agency".  This is my reflection on those two ideas, how they have merged together in my mind, and how I'm working on incorporating them into my life.</p>
<h2>Come Together</h2>
<p>My still new employer, <a href="https://www.improving.com/">Improving</a>, has a series of meetings every month under the title "Come Together" as a way to share topics as well as build community in ways that aren't normally exposed internally within a company. Past sessions have covered individual countries where we have offices, the concept of playing games to build teams, and even just "pets".</p>
<p>November's topic was tied to men and male health, which I'll be honest, it isn't my favorite. It feels a bit cringe. Not that I want to ignore it or dismiss it, quite the opposite actually. I think men's health is important and often men ignore it and pretend they're invincible. It's just that my first impression was part of the pushback on things like the #metoo movement and the "reverse sexism" talk track.  But I'm still getting to know this new place so I did my best to not jump to conclusions.</p>
<h3>Initial Conversation</h3>
<p>The specific session I'm writing about was on being leaders in a global company, the challenges they face and tools, tips, and techniques to deal with the stress and balance therein.  I'm not entirely sure what about the description caught my attention and made me dial in without multitasking and getting distracted, but I'm glad it happened.  I was still doing some multitasking, but I just can't imagine myself ever sitting there watching some talking heads for an hour without doing anything else. At the beginning of this session, I felt a bit guilty about what I was doing, but as you'll see through my processing and analysis, it turns out I shouldn't have felt that way. I always have plenty of projects going in the garage and I decided one of them could keep me busy while allowing my brain to process the discussion that was happening in the meeting.</p>
<p>The initial parts of the meeting were mildly interesting although in a superficial sense and what you might expect from a company meeting on the topic. They talked about ways to deal with stress and how long they had been doing jobs like this, and that type of thing. The speakers were our CEO and the leaders of some global offices -- all of them are successful men that fit a stereotype I often roll my eyes at (middle-aged successful men running technology companies worth tens and hundreds of millions of dollars). These particular individuals are not cringe, but it's hard for me to listen to them talk about how they manage life stress without feeling that my life is very different from their life. That is probably true, but as the talk went on, it was good to hear what they had to say and see them as more level-headed and relatable people than I gave them credit for.</p>
<h3>Integrated Life</h3>
<p>What caught my attention was when the CEO started talking about the idea of an 'Integrated Life.' That name made me cringe—it sounded like corporate-speak for 'always be available for work.' Given my history with poor leadership, particularly around how development organizations are treated, I was skeptical. My initial take: this was just another way to say 'work overtime without payment' and 'be at leadership's disposal whenever they need you.' However, as I listened to him explain what this concept actually means to him, my cynicism faded. He talks about this topic regularly and is clearly passionate about it—this wasn't just a talk track tailored for this particular audience.</p>
<p>My interpretation of what he calls the integrated life is actually very well aligned to the kind of lifestyle I was after in my job change and something that I believe the pandemic taught us was possible.  The talk track of "work life balance" is tired and beaten down to the point it has become mostly a punching bag for something to refer to when griping about work or looking for a new year's resolution.  A recap I sent a friend afterwards was this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the kids have a thing in the morning then go do it.  If you want to go for a walk with your wife or go shopping for the kids at 11am then do it.  Maybe that works best for you and you’re fine working later so you are still getting your job done.  8-5 workdays aren’t for everyone and don’t force yourself into that if you don’t have to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In our modern world -- particularly in the development space -- we're connected to our job far more than we would like to admit.  Even if you don't have Slack notifications on your phone or you have setup do not disturb rules there is always a sense of someone being able to reach you if they really "need" to.  For some that's a pretty firm wall they aren't willing to cross but in reality that's almost expected of people nowadays.</p>
<p>While that feels <em>new</em> to say we're always connected and expected to be on-call for anything it's nothing new.  Doctors have essentially forever been on call and available in one way or another (picture the community doctor taking a carriage to a sick person in the 19th century or whatever other historical reference you like).  Car shops have 24-hour call lines for towing and emergency services.  Journalists are ready to jump into work when a story starts to break.  Even for jobs that have been around since before the industrial revolution we have farmers that literally live on the job with hours around the clock, pastors that live in parsonages often connected to their church and get visits throughout the day, or teachers that do lesson planning at all hours of the day.</p>
<p>In some ways it is made up and silly to say that jobs need to be cut-and-dry with the 8-to-5 hours that nicely start and cut off. Certainly some jobs have set hours and should stick to that (retail, hourly positions, etc) but a good portion of the jobs in society don't fit into that pattern by definition.  Pairing that with the lessons that the remote-only life-and-work-smashed-together patterns of the Covid pandemic taught us about how effective development organizations can be doing work remotely and asynchronously it seems that forcing that development into the 8-to-5 mold out of habit is at best just poorly justified.  To me it's convenient for the command-and-control patterns of old-timer business leaders to keep their false sense of security in place around development teams.</p>
<h3>Trust</h3>
<p>From the business side of this the lesson here is trust.  There <em>has to be</em> trust between workers and their leadership in order for any of this to work.  However, I'd argue that even in the old school model of making development teams come in 8 to 5 every day you have to trust them -- physical location and set working hours are not a substitute for trust.  On our company swag t-shirts it says "trust changes everything" and it really does.  If sales people can be remote and work non-standard hours then why can't development team members?  But this post is about my approach to my career and life, not about what's wrong with the software industry.</p>
<h2>Limited Agency</h2>
<p>The integrated life concept helped me rethink my relationship with work. But it was a post my mom shared from the wonderful <a href="https://substack.com/@katecbowler">Kate Bowler</a> about <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-182092988">celebrating limited agency</a> that helped me rethink my relationship with life itself. I had been slowly working on this post about the integrated life and Kate's post seemed to complete the picture for me. While the integrated life is about the career vs life connections, her post gets into setting good expectations and a healthy approach to life from another angle.</p>
<h3>Midlife Evaluations</h3>
<p>From Kate's post:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Over and over again, the message is the same: the only limit is you. If you could just overcome the mental block, the laziness, the lack of discipline, then the “real” version of your life could begin.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether it's the career mess and subsequent transition I went through in 2025 or the fact that I'm in my mid-40s there is a lot of reflection on life in my head these days.  And this idea of "the perfect life is just over the horizon" poisons my mind daily.  I sometimes think about Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise line "too much television watchin' got me chasin' dreams" as there is a lot of truth in that.  Society and social media paint pictures that are just not real.  And the forever chase of those unrealistic goals causes us to miss out on what is amazing right in front of us.</p>
<p>Throughout my career up until last March I definitely was overly ambitious in how I approached work and what it could get me.  I did well and got a pretty comfortable life out of it as a result.  But I also missed out on other things and focused on work more than I should have.  As Kate mentions, the problem with focusing on optimization is that it's never enough to get to that goal.  Just like the idea of removing the blocks making your "real" life possible, if you get more work done then you just are given more.  There is always more work to do and the business world isn't structured to keep that work even.  Some professions work in ways that allow for you to get a benefit from really getting after it where you have a preset amount of work but that's not how most "corporate" jobs work out.</p>
<h3>Life's Interruptions</h3>
<p>Kate goes on to talk about interruptions to life being "spiritual and psychological resets".  These interruptions are sometimes planned and sometimes not, they can be positive or negative, long or short.  But they are important times to reflect and learn from instead of being pissed and beat-down.  The work environment change of last March initially did both of those things and I can't say I particularly know how I managed to get past that relatively quickly but I'm glad I did.  Recently my brother had some unexpected health things come up that triggered some deep reflection for me and my family.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Interruption is how we remember we are not machines...they arrive with unexpected mercy: snapping the illusion that we were ever fully in control.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The integrated life approach to the work-life-balance discussion is along these same lines.  We aren't in control and should stop pretending we can do 8-5 work and 5-8 life.  We can't schedule our sicknesses, when friends have babies, or when our car might need some work.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Limited agency is the humility to admit, <em>I don’t get to steer the whole story</em>, paired with the courage to say, <em>but I can still choose something</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Just like the integrated life accepts the reality we're in for working in this modern world the limited agency accepts life will throw us curveballs and we should do our best to take them as they come.  Nobody will take them without a stumble or human reactions but we need to stop telling ourselves that there is a way to prevent them or be resistant to them.  To do that would be to isolate yourself entirely from literally everything else in the world.</p>
<h2>Takeaways</h2>
<p>This is a lot of words (by far my longest post to date) so what am I getting at? It really boils down to approaching life with a more realistic mindset - and finding work that supports that approach.</p>
<p>Changing jobs last year wasn't explicitly about "integrated life" or "limited agency" - I didn't have those terms yet. But the feelings driving that decision were real: I needed to work for an organization that trusts me to manage my own time and do my job well without micromanagement. Remote work and flexible hours aren't for everyone. But if that's what works best for the employee and the job allows for it, trust them to manage it. Let them do their job within their life, not the other way around.</p>
<p>What does that look like day-to-day? It means taking time for life when it comes up naturally, not just when it's "allowed." If I have a home project occupying my mind during work hours, I can go tackle it and come back to work after dinner when I'm more focused. Or maybe a friend who also works remote wants to work alongside each other while catching up. The point isn't rigid 8-to-5 boundaries - it's the flexibility to manage work and life in ways that make sense for me, while still delivering for my customers.</p>
<p>I'm not claiming this is easy or that I have it figured out. Life still throws curveballs, and I still stumble. But I'm done pretending that with enough planning or discipline I can control everything. I'm also done accepting that a job needs to control me -- there are better and healthier ways of working out there.  With all of this the goal isn't perfection - it's finding a sustainable rhythm that acknowledges reality instead of fighting it.</p>


Adam Dehnel

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Integrated Life & Limited Agency