The Work–Life Balance Snipe Hunt (and the Joy I Found When I Stopped Looking)

Letting go of guilt, dropping the bag, and discovering that fun, not balance, was the missing piece all along. A personal journey from the work–life balance myth to real joy and fulfillment.

Work–Life Balance Is the Ultimate Snipe Hunt

For most of my adult life, I believed work–life balance was something I should have figured out by now. After all, I had checked every box of what a “balanced” person is supposed to do. I’ve been an Emergency Nurse, a Critical Care Nurse, a Case Manager, a Hospital House Supervisor—you get the picture. I’ve worked 12‑hour night shifts, double shifts, holidays, weekends, weekdays, and every combination in between. For ten of those years, I worked full time and held a second job.

All while raising children, caring for pets, and attempting to keep plants alive, though many of them didn’t make it.

And through all of it—every shift, every degree, every caregiving moment—I felt guilty. Not because I wasn’t doing enough, but because I never achieved “work–life balance.”

It took me far too long to realize the truth: I wasn’t failing at balance. I was chasing something that didn’t exist.

The Snipe Hunt We’ve All Been Sent On

A snipe hunt, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a practical joke in which the victim is left in a remote spot holding a bag for fictitious snipe to run into.”

In other words, you’re sent out into the dark, told to wait patiently, and promised that if you just try hard enough, you’ll catch something magical.

Except the creature isn’t real.
And the joke is that you don’t know that yet.

Sound familiar?

Because the definition of work–life balance—“the amount of time you spend doing your job compared with the amount of time you spend with your family and doing things you enjoy”—sounds simple enough. Reasonable, even. Like something you should be able to achieve if you just organize your life better, or try harder, or read the right book, or download the right app.

But for many of us—especially those in caregiving professions, leadership roles, or households where life never stops moving—this “balance” is as mythical as the snipe.

And yet we keep hunting.

Twenty-Five Years of Holding the Bag

Looking back, I wish I could tell you I figured this out quickly.

But the truth is, it took me roughly 25 years.

Twenty-five years of believing that if I just adjusted one more thing—my schedule, my mindset, my priorities—I’d finally catch the elusive creature everyone else seemed to be bragging about.

Twenty-five years of thinking the problem was me.

And to those of you who genuinely have found balance—congratulations. Truly. You’ve done what many of us never will. You’ve caught the snipe. I applaud you and your success story.

But that was never going to be my story.
And if you’re reading this, it might not be yours either.

The Moment I Pivoted My Sails

In my last pirate themed blog, there are pearls to seek and there is power of pivoting your sails when the wind changes. This realization was exactly that—a pivot, a redirection, a moment of humility and clarity.

Because if the snipe wasn’t real, then why was I still out there in the dark holding the bag?

What was I actually hoping to find?
And what if the thing I needed wasn’t balance at all?

A New Hunt Begins: The Hunt for Fun

The definition of fun, according to Merriam-Webster, includes “what provides amusement or enjoyment… specifically: playful, often boisterous action or speech.”

Fun.
A word so simple that I had forgotten what it meant in practice.

My epiphany arrived on a “girls’ cruise” with three women who are retired, hilarious, and fully committed to enjoying their lives. I turned off my phone, closed my apps, and stepped away from the constant hum of responsibility.

And I asked myself, all day long:
Am I having fun?

If the answer was yes, I leaned in.
If the answer was no, I paused and asked why.
If I wasn’t sure, I experimented.

I reframed moments.
I pivoted quickly.
I let myself explore joy without guilt.

And something inside me shifted.

Fun as a Philosophy, Not a Luxury

When I returned home—still working full time, still finishing my doctorate, still raising teenagers—I held tight to this new philosophy:

If I can’t find fun, I will create it.
If I can’t create it, I will reframe it.
If I can’t reframe it, I will move on.

I even told my teams at work:
“This is my new approach to everything. I’m on a fun-seeking mission.”

Not in a frivolous way.
Not in a “pretend everything is fine” way.
But in a grounded, intentional, life-preserving way.

And the wildest thing happened:
My world changed.

I found joy in places I had overlooked for years.
I realized how much emotional energy I had spent trying to achieve balance—energy I could now redirect toward something that actually nourished me.

The Conference That Sealed the Deal

A few months later, I attended a national conference for an electronic medical record company. I was going to be away from my family, my schoolwork, and my job for five days—an objectively “unbalanced” choice.

Old habits crept in.
Guilt whispered.
The snipe rustled in the bushes.

But I ignored it.

And what unfolded was the most fun conference I have ever attended.

New friends.
Ice cream for dinner.
Bright colors.
Music.
A pulley system that made me laugh harder than I had in months.

It was an extrovert’s dream—and a fun hunter’s paradise.

That conference solidified it for me:
Fun leads to more fulfillment than balance ever did.
Fun opens doors.
Fun builds connection.
Fun makes the hard things sustainable.

Letting the Snipe Go

Here’s the truth I wish someone had told me years ago:

You might never find balance.
And that’s okay.

You might spend years chasing something that was never meant for you.
You might hold the bag in the dark long enough to realize the joke was never on you—it was on the idea itself.

Because while balance is elusive, fun is accessible.
Fun is renewable.
Fun is personal.
Fun is real.

And fun—unlike the snipe—can actually be found.

If You Need Permission, Here It Is

If you’re like me, and you’ve spent years feeling guilty for not achieving work–life balance, let me offer you this:

You have permission to stop hunting.
You have permission to pivot.
You have permission to seek fun instead.

Let the snipe fade into memory.
Let the guilt go with it.
Let yourself chase something that brings you joy, connection, and energy.

Because I’m not going to find balance.
And if I ever do, I might not even notice—
because I’ll be too busy having fun.

And as a small but meaningful bonus, even my plants are finally living and thriving with this new philosophy. Turns out they just needed a little fun too.