Your life starts everyday when you leave your work place

I've often heard people talk about not taking their work home with them. Yet those people still take their work home with them. I guess I should explain. People can take their work home with them in a couple of different ways. They can physically take it home with them. These are the real workaholics. These are the people who actually take their reports home, or their products home, and find ways of improving them even though they've already gone over them several times at work.

Then there are those who take their work home mentally. They don't see it because they're not bringing home something tangible, but work is totally still lingering at home. These are the people who go home, and unknowingly (at least I hope it's unknowingly) talk about all the dull and annoying occurrences they endured throughout the work day. I'm not going to lie. I've fallen victim to this before. I used to catch myself doing this from time to time, then I realized it was only when I was hanging out with people from work.

So here's the key. If you can't stop talking about work when you're around people from work, it's time for intervention. Either that or stop hanging out with them. Luckily I no longer work with anyone I have anything in common with. It not only makes work better, but it totally boosts my social life.

It's great to have friends with many common interests, but it's also great to have friends with varied interests from your own. It can be fun to have a diverse group of friends. They can bring different ideas and different facets of fun to a conversation.

This doesn't necessarily mean hanging out with coworkers is a no-no. I've worked with people who I adored to death. In fact a couple of my closest friends are people I worked with. What people should remember is that they need to leave work at work. It's once you leave work that your actual life begins. I guess that doesn't hold true for people who eat, drink, and breathe work, but that's a whole other breed of human being. ;)