Work-Life-Baseball Balance

I went to a baseball game last night with some of my co-workers for a company outing. The whole day, I was dreading going for a number of reasons. First of all, I don’t drink very often, and I knew that a lot of my work friends were going to use the event as an excuse to become very intoxicated. That is their choice, and if that is what makes them happy, so be it. The party lifestyle is simply not how I choose to live. I don’t like how I get when I drink, and I don’t think that I am able to be like Christ in those moments. However, I know that in those situations, it is very difficult not to succumb to peer pressure. No one has ever forced me to take a sip of alcohol, but I still feel the pressure because it never feels good to be considered the outsider.

Another reason I didn’t want to go to the game is because of my singleness. Most of my co-workers have a significant other, and the ones who don’t are the ones who drink heavily. What was I going to do? I hate small talk. It pretty much bores me to tears because it doesn’t mean anything. I want to know what people are actually about, not just what they do. I didn’t really have a choice in the matter because I am on the committee that plans the company events; it was my responsibility to go as part of that role.

It ended up being okay because there were three other single female co-workers who were there that weren’t drinking either. (At an engineering company, the fact that there was even one other person from my same demographic there was amazing, let alone three!) I actually had a really good time. The team even won! And the fireworks after the game were absolutely phenomenal.

In the midst of my pity party yesterday afternoon when I seriously considered just going home for the night, I had texted a friend to complain. Her response was that I needed “to learn to be content in being single eventually”. Um. Okay. I don’t think that not wanting to hang out by myself in a crowd of drunken people was really a problem with singleness. It was a problem with not feeling understood in general. 

It is very hard to maintain my faith and values in the workplace when everyone else practically screams that they think I am wrong. Cursing is pervasive in the language around the office, and I very much want to change how much I contribute to it. Drinking is a common theme among work functions. I really had to change my attitude when I started my career because I have never been around alcohol very much, but that is simply how my co-workers choose to relate to one another. Other people have different standards, and I can’t judge them for how they live their lives. I can only seek to do my best to live the way I think God wants me to live.