If I’m having problems at home, it is almost always reflected in my work.

I have a hard time concentrating.  I don’t have the ambition to do more than the bare minimum.  My productivity and effectiveness take a serious hit.

Ideally, I would have a universal remote for life that allowed me to hit pause on my work life whenever personal issues needed to be dealt with, and vice versa.  Unfortunately, Wal-Mart seems to be all out of Life Remotes.

In the absence of a magical pause button, what’s the best way to keep your personal life from negatively impacting your work life?

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You know what my favorite thing about summer is?

The dramatic reduction in working mom guilt.

I mean, OK, I still feel bad because my kids spend their summer at daycare programs instead of running the neighborhood with their friends.  And, yes, I wish I had more time to take them to the pool and the beach and on family vacations.  But with the help of family, friends, camps and weekends, my kids get plenty of fun and relaxation in between June and August.

But school is just around the corner now (and has started for many of you), and it’s only a matter of time before I’m once again asking myself, “am I the only mom who works?!?”

You know the drill.  The letters asking if you’d like to volunteer to be a chaperone for this year’s field trips.  The PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences held at 2 in the afternoon.  The requests for two dozen cookies sent home the night before two dozen cookies are needed.

And when I say “I have to work”, I feel like what’s heard is “I care more about my job than my children.”

Of course, that’s not true.  In fact, most of the women I know who work do so, in part, because of all the things they want to provide for their children.  Things like food and shelter, for example.

Moving away from a small town where I knew everyone helped to assauge a lot of the guilt I felt about not being able to be the Home Room Mom (whatever that is).  It’s a lot easier to focus on the realities of what’s important to your family when you don’t know the people you imagine to be juding you.  Once I got the Guilt Over Things I Am Probably Making Up In My Head out of the way, it became a lot easier to focus on realistic ways that I, as a mother who works full time, can be involved in my children’s education.

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Not all of us are working at our dream jobs.

That’s life.

But, there’s a difference between having to balance your passions with your day job and absolutely hating your job.  Hating your job is bad.  Spending 40 or more hours a week in a place that you hate sucks.  And it’s bad for the soul.

It also has the potential to seep into your home life, your personal life, and every aspect of who you are - if you let it go too far.

What are your options if you hate your job?

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Do what you love and the money will come.

That’s what they tell us, anyway.  They being Disney and your mom and your high school guidance counselor and the life coaches on Oprah.

And look at how well it worked out for Oprah!

Yes, the answer to happiness and prosperity, it seems, is clear.  Just do what you love.  The money will come.

I think I’m going to try that line out on my mortgage company next month.

“Hey, listen.  I’m doing what I love!  Don’t worry!  The money will come!  And when it does, you’ll be first on my list!”

Or not.

I think that in theory, the “do what you love” concept is a brilliant one.  But in reality, I had a family to provide for at 19.  I had to make a living long before I had any clue what my passion or purpose was in life.  And now, 10 years later at 29, I have responsibilities and obligations to take care of every month that I can’t just walk away from or put on hold while I wait for “the money to come”.

So now what?

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