Professional and Personal Fulfillment

"It is difficult for people to achieve professional success without sacrificing important aspects of a fulfilling personal life."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

There are no free lunches in this world. To gain something, one has to often loose something else. The same is true for professional success;it is hard to achieve it without sacrificing important aspects of a fulfilling personal life.

A fulfilling personal life needs enough time with the family, daily exercise and some time for leisure. However, there are only twenty-four hours in a day. Success demands persistent hard work, focus and vigilance. In fact, the more one becomes successful, the more responsibility one gets. Not only that, success also has the potential to attract all the wrong kind of people to one's life: it may be a gold-digger, a jealous rival who  or a fraudulent charity. This demands higher level of vigilance and takes its toll on the successful individual. 

A pertinent example I can think of is a report that I read in a health magazine on the rise of occurrence of diseases like high blood pressure, cardiac arrests, asthma and depression in young, working professionals. This is attributed to rising stress level in the fast-paced working environment of today. As individuals compete to out-perform the other in a zero-sum game, the entire focus shifts to  getting ahead. This leaves people with very less time with their family or themselves. Hence, when professional fulfilment takes precedence, personal fulfilment is often the first casualty.

Even if I had not read the report, my personal experience would have led me to reach the same conclusion. A friend of mine and his wife were two successful professional in the investment banking and sales sector respectively. While the husband worked long, unreasonable hours; the wife had to travel frequently across the country. As they wanted to grow in their respective careers, they also decided to delay having a baby. Over the years their interaction fell down drastically and now they are also facing a problem in conceiving a baby. The situation is so bad that it is likely that they may divorce each other. It is a clear example of how the pursuit of professional success often entails sacrificing important aspects of a fulfilling personal life. 

Concluding, I completely agree with the stated opinion. Obsession with the rat-race of achieving professional success often involves forgoing other things: personal fulfillment. This is not something that is planned, but is a consequence of having fixed number of hours in a day and the desire to excel professionally in today's fast-paced environment.