Between Duty and Desire: Three Lives, One Question About Work

It began, as these conversations often do, with a small correction that carried more weight than it seemed.

“Not a little bit older,” Ismar said, almost gently, but with that quiet insistence that comes from a lifetime of precision. “Double.”

The Mayor had smiled, trying to soften the gap with politeness. But the gap remained. Thirty and sixty-five. Bengaluru and Campo Grande. A man still building his life, and another looking back at the structures that had built his.

And somewhere between them sat the question: What is work, really—and what has it taken from us?

From the outside, it could have sounded like a simple discussion about work-life balance. A modern phrase, almost fashionable. But as the conversation unfolded, it became clear that the phrase itself belonged more to Ritesh’s world than to Ismar’s.

For Ismar, the idea of “balance” had never really existed as a concept.

Most people he had known, he said, did not speak about life outside work at all. Whether in public service or private companies, conversations circled back again and again to the same thing: the job. Problems at work. Tasks completed. Issues unresolved.

It puzzled him.

“I don’t know why,” he said, with that familiar hesitation. “I don’t know if people don’t have other interests… or if they don’t read… or don’t watch anything.”

He gave an example—his former brother-in-law, a man who had spent decades in a semi-public water company, climbing almost to the top. A stable career, a respectable position. But when he spoke, it was always about work. Only work. Even when meeting family, even when time allowed for something else.

No hobbies. No stories beyond the office.

It wasn’t said with judgment. Just observation. That was his way—looking at life almost like a case study, trying to understand patterns without forcing conclusions.

Ritesh listened carefully. You could see, even in silence, that he was placing this somewhere inside his own framework—comparing, contrasting, trying to find the “two sides” of it.

Because in his world, work was not just something people talked about. It was something that consumed.

If Ismar’s generation had accepted work as “this is normal, don’t question it,” Ritesh’s generation had started to question—but without the power to change.

“Most of the energy goes to work,” he said, almost matter-of-factly.

Not just work itself, but everything around it. The commute. Forty-five minutes each way. It sounds small, he admitted, but it drains something invisible. If his house were closer, he said, he could save two hours a day. Two hours of life, quietly absorbed into the system.

And then there was the other layer—not time, but expectation.

In theory, work-life balance was something everyone wanted. Especially people with families. In reality, it was something you negotiated carefully, almost fearfully.

“You cannot say no,” he explained.

Not because the rulebook forbids it, but because the consequences are understood without being spoken. Replacement is always a possibility. There is always someone else.

So people carry laptops on holiday. Answer calls at night. Join meetings that stretch across time zones. A colleague responding at 10:30 p.m. is not seen as extreme—it is seen as responsible.

And sometimes even as admirable.

There was something subtle in the way Ritesh said this. Not anger, not even complaint. More like recognition. This is the system. This is how it works.

But he also saw the contradiction clearly.

“There is a culture,” he said, “and there is a wish.”

The wish is for balance. The culture is something else entirely.

Listening to both of them, the difference was not just generational. It was structural.

For Ismar, work had been something imposed but stable. It shaped him, yes—he admitted that openly. The military environment had influenced his personality, even his sense of authority.

“I think I am a little authoritarian,” he said, almost apologetically.

But he had also resisted. He had chosen, consciously, not to carry certain behaviors home. The harsh language, the rigid tone—those stayed at work, as much as possible.

He had tried to separate worlds.

Not always successfully. That, too, he admitted.

Because work does something deeper than schedule. It shapes how you think, how you respond, how you see others. And in environments like the military, where hierarchy is absolute, that influence is difficult to escape.

There were moments of quiet injustice that had stayed with him.

Being forced to remain at work even after finishing tasks. Two hours of unnecessary waiting, simply because a superior said so. The logic did not matter. Authority did.

He had even risked punishment by leaving early once. Expected jail. It did not come—but the memory remained.

And then there was the larger unfairness. Opportunities given not by merit, but by connections. Exams passed, but promotions denied. Others, less qualified, moving ahead because they had support from above.

“Military environment is not a fair place,” he said simply.

And yet, in the same breath, he spoke of pride.

Because his work—aviation management—had meaning. Planes carrying food across the country. Systems that allowed people to live better. He could see the impact.

So again, two sides.

Pride and frustration. Stability and injustice. Duty and limitation.

Ritesh recognized this pattern instinctively.

His own experience was different in form, but similar in structure.

Hierarchy, he said, is deeply embedded in Indian culture. Not just in work, but everywhere—family, education, society. Respect is important, but it often becomes silence.

You don’t question. You comply.

And in corporate life, that translates into something very specific: availability.

Your time is not entirely yours.

Even when you are off, you are not completely off.

He described how work schedules are shaped not by personal boundaries, but by global dependencies. Meetings across time zones. Clients in different countries. Teams working in overlapping hours.

“It’s not that work moves on my time,” he said. “I move on others’ time.”

That one sentence seemed to land heavily in the space between them.

Because it captured something both men understood—just from different angles.

The Mayor, observing quietly, tried to push the comparison further.

What about Europe, he asked, where in some countries it is forbidden for a boss to contact employees outside working hours?

Ritesh smiled slightly.

“It is like a dream,” he said.

Not impossible. Just distant. Something you see in videos, in stories, in other systems. But not something that fits easily into the current reality.

Because here, the structure is different.

There are fewer protections. Weaker unions. Stronger dependence on employers. A larger population competing for the same opportunities.

And so, the pressure becomes internalized.

People don’t just comply—they begin to believe in the system. They find identity in being needed, in being available, in being the one who responds.

Even when it costs them something.

And then the conversation moved, almost naturally, into the most fragile space: relationships.

What happens when work consumes this much energy?

What happens to a marriage?

Ritesh spoke carefully here. Not theoretically, but through examples.

A colleague who could not sustain basic communication with his wife’s family. Not because of lack of intention, but because of exhaustion. Frustration. Disconnection.

Eventually, divorce.

There was no dramatic blame in the story. Just a quiet breakdown.

Because time is not just about hours—it is about attention. And attention, in these systems, is already spent elsewhere.

Even in his own life, Ritesh was navigating this balance consciously. His wife considering work, preparing for it, but also aware of the complexity. The trade-offs.

He did not impose. That was important to him.

“If you want to work, it is fine,” he said. “No issues.”

That sentence carried something deeper than it seemed. A conscious effort not to repeat the same structures of control he himself had experienced.

Respect, without dominance.

Support, without expectation.

Again, two sides—tradition and change, coexisting uneasily.

In the end, there was no conclusion. No neat answer.

Only a shared recognition.

Ismar, looking back, saw a life shaped by work—sometimes meaningfully, sometimes unfairly. He accepted its influence, even its flaws, with a kind of quiet realism. He had done what he could within the system he had.

Ritesh, looking forward, saw a different kind of challenge. Awareness without power. Desire for balance without structural support. A generation trying to redefine work, but still caught inside its demands.

Between them sat the Mayor, bridging worlds, asking questions that revealed more than they resolved.

Three men. Two generations. Three continents.

And one shared understanding, perhaps unspoken but present:

Work is never just work.

It is culture. It is power. It is identity.

And somewhere, always, it is also a negotiation—with time, with self, and with the lives we are trying to build beyond it.