It's clear, from Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings, that she has a warm relationship with her family and friends, including her beloved mother and brother.
But in her rise through the legal profession, she has made a number of personal sacrifices, most notably marriage and children.
Ms. Sotomayor's marriage to her high-school sweetheart ended after just a few years, in part, she has said, because of an excessive work schedule. 'I cannot attribute that divorce to work,' she told a panel on judicial life. 'But certainly the fact that I was leaving my home at 7:00am and getting back at 10:00pm was not of assistance in recognizing the problems developing in my marriage.'
'I have found it difficult to maintain a relationship while I've pursued my career,' Ms. Sotomayor also said in a television interview.
Ms. Sotomayor was subsequently engaged, but that 8-year relationship ended, too 岸 before they went to the altar. She has no children. These days, her life is 'frantically busy, fulfilling and often aloof,' according to the New York Times. 'You make play dates with her months and months in advance because of her schedule,' a friend of hers told the Times.
Earlier this week, we discussed Jack Welch's views on work-life balance. He argued that for women to rise to the top, 'they've got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one.'
But such choices aren't just necessary for women, as Juggle readers have pointed out. Men, too, often make hard sacrifices (failed marriages, missing their children grow up) to reach the pinnacles of their careers, especially in our increasingly workaholic and wired culture.
As the New York Times columnist David Brooks put it: 'This is the story of pressures that affect men as well as women (men are just more likely to make fools of themselves in response, as the news of the last few years indicates). It's the story of people in a meritocracy that gets more purified and competitive by the year, with the time demands growing more and more insistent.'
He adds that Ms. Sotomayor's life 'overlaps with a broader class of high achievers. You don't succeed at that level without developing a single-minded focus, and struggling against its consequences.'
I find this all a bit depressing and reductive, because it seems like those who make it to the top must be, by necessity, workaholic automatons. I wonder, Juggle readers, is it ever possible to rise high in a profession without being an unceasing, laser-focused workaholic? Are there examples in your own workplaces of people who have managed that feat?
