Life is not evolving. It is mutating. When I view workplaces and family spaces and the current scenario, there is a definite mutation in perceptions and observable lifestyles. Although Freud said happiness is composed of both love and work, reality often forces us to choose either love or work. However, happiness lies in the balance between work, friends and family.

Not so long ago, a workplace was just that: a place where you went to work and earn to support yourself and your family. Yes, friendships and life-long relations did develop but could never substitute for the core feelings and relations between family members. For the father, the mother or children, the family was a pod, a secure, snug, comforting, supportive place in a dangerous world. When you thought of family, the word evoked warm responses and loving images. The roots you belonged to. Family is a true source of happiness. Jobs will come and go but family will always be there from the beginning to the end.

Work was indispensable to support a family but did not gain precedence. Work was work and your private family life was your own. If you made friends at workplaces you invited them home and celebrated on festivals but family always came first. For most people, that is how it was and still is for a few.

The workplace-family space equation has undergone a change and a mutation. My brother set out to work. He works with people in the same age group and work environments are now more informal, less constricting and work has become life itself.

Employers ask for long hours to the extent that he spends as much as 10 to 12 hours at work. He knows colleagues better than he knows his sister, father or me. If he plans a celebration, it is at the office in the company of colleagues.

Work and colleagues have transitioned from being on the periphery to occupying centre-space in a person's life. Colleagues are important and are needed as much for office collaborations and progress at work as much as they are necessary and pivotal to life's enjoyment. It is a common complaint that family members no longer understand you or care for you. You chat, text and phone your colleagues more than ever. Is it surprising that a bond develops? This is how my brother lives. My brother is a stranger to me!

Some might argue that it is all to the good. After all if colleagues become close friends, they will help and make life joyful. However, life is not so rosy. Colleagues, once friends, can become bitter rivals, sail you down the river, backstab or pull you down for self advancement.

I tell my brother this but he says “It can never happen. I am not like that. My friends are not like that.” Who am I to argue? Life will show...

My brother works long hours and is rarely at home. It is as if we are sharing a living space instead of a family environment. We rarely go out together. My brother and my wife don't get along well enough. For everyone except me, it seems work and workplace is the number one priority in life. If they have free time, they have to be with friends, go out to restaurants or off on a holiday. That is cool. If I suggest we go out together, it is seen as the most boring activity and everyone sidesteps it. Is family a priority in today's context?

Apparently not. It is career advancement, earning more money and buying stuff that has gained precedence. Workplaces offer them everything from insurance to gyms, get together and even baby care so they can work, work and work. I suppose a family then, does not provide all these and a social ecosystem. And then comes a time when your parents are likely to prove a burden or a stumbling block on the road to advancement, you can put them so easily into old peoples' homes that have sprung up everywhere. You can convince your parents it is better for them, they will be in like company and will be looked after. How convenient!

I am not alone. This seems to be a growing trend in metros in India, especially in families that pushed a different set of values and wanted children to succeed in a modern, competitive world. There are families out there who live together and care for each other, untainted and untouched by western influences. For them family comes first.

Work will always be important to filling that void of purpose and self worth to society. But the impact to your life and family will always be greater from the success of your family than the success of your work. You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once.

Working mothers make personal sacrifice every day! Leaving a three-month-old infant in another person's house for nine hours, five days a week is a personal sacrifice, isn’t it?

Hopefully, despite everything, the kernel of Indian cultures and traditions will persist at the core. Even my brother, so heavily into his job and a modern life, will settle down and marry rather than go in for a live in relationship. He will have children and realize he has a family thinking the same thoughts that occurred to me.

What do you think?