Work or Love: Did Grey’s Anatomy Hit on

Something Profound? It Can’t Be…

Last night I was forced to watch yet another episode of the pretty boys
and girls playing at doctoring while sleeping with each other (I once
saw an amazing diagram in TV Guide showing the love connections of
every character of Grey's Anatomy proving that literally every
character had at one time slept with every other character no matter
how unlikely the connection). I was shocked to realize that in its own
juvenile way the show was getting at something really important.

Cristina, played by Sandra Oh (okay, she is a serious and good actor) is

caught in a love triangle--the standard plot line on the show--that puts
her in a bind. Her heart surgeon mentor is in love with her boyfriend
doctor. The upshot is she can't keep her mentor and her lover. She
has to choose, love or surgery. That becomes the mantra for the
episode, "love or surgery" asked of every character male or female.

It was Sigmund Freud who famously said, “Love and work... work and
love, that's all there is.”

What he had now way of anticipating is the complexity of engaging in

both simultaneously in the modern world. Feminism was born out of
women's desire to be moms and workers (and to be treated fairly in
both roles).

I would argue much of the dilemma faced by men in 2010 is caused by

their inability to reconcile love and work. 1 in 5 men make less than
their wives. 70% of job loss in the recession has been men. 1 in 3
men are less educated than their wives.

But those numbers only scratch the surface. As men we are asked to
roll on the ground with our kids, change diapers, and share our
emotions with our spouses in ways that just wasn't part of the deal for
our fathers. At the same time the expectation to excel professionally
has accelerated. A man's worth continues to be judged primarily by
his checkbook in our society.

John Edwards and Tiger Woods are extreme examples of the

public/private quagmire many men find themselves in. How to be
superhuman at work and at home? It's not easy. It requires
compromise and a level of honesty about our shortcomings most men
don't like to admit ("Babe, I just don't know if I can do this" are not
words most men will utter to their wives without a gun pointed at their
heads).

So all this was swirling in my head as I lay in bed next to my beautiful

wife. I wondered how well I had done at balancing work and love. How
well I had modeled how to deal with success and failure in both for my
two sons and a daughter?

I’ve lived a rather big life in some ways, CFO of a big company by 29,
venture capitalist, writer. But I hit the wall 13 years ago. Going
through a painful divorce with two then baby children while getting
sober. Learning how to be a dad on my own with no safety ropes.
Getting remarried after six years and having a third child while
continuing to live a rather public life causing continued stress at home.

As I snuggled my wife in bed watching Derek and Izzy and the rest of
the crew, my 4 year old son fell off to sleep and my 15 year old
daughter and then 13 year old son came it to hug us goodnight, I
realized that just talking about the strain of work and love half the
battle since there are few easy answers whether you are male or
female in our current society.

The problem, of course, is that us guys don’t like to talk. As the

pressure mounts we often find ourselves lying to ourselves. And once
we are lying to ourselves its just a short hop over to begin lying to our
loved ones. That’s what got me in a heap of trouble all those years
ago.

In the end Christina chooses work over love. But her lover Owen won't
accept that answer, sweeping her off her feet in a passionate
Hollywood ending. If only the real world was that easy.