Recently I made portraits of Rana Abdullah for CPA magazine for a column on how to find balance with life/work. Here’s what Rana said:
It really hit me to slow down when one day Yafa [the youngest of my four daughters] urged me to buy her shoes two sizes bigger. As her mother, I should have known that, but I had lost track. I reflected on my goals in the different areas of my life, and then I actively developed the skills I would need to get balance. I started setting boundaries on my time.
Now, I take Friday nights off work: I spend them with the family. My daughters help me with housework, cooking and technology.
I have figured out a way to deal with my career, parenting and my other interests. It took some time, and I don’t claim that I feel successful every day, but I found a way to balance it all. I love to garden and grow flowers, I paint and I write — those activities relieve stress and give me time to reflect and think.
[Work-life balance] has to be anchored in a firm personal philosophy about something: for me, that something is human rights. I have served as an advocate with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and in my support of refugees, I have been through everything from bureaucratic approvals to assisting families in settling in their new communities. I won’t ever say “I’m not available” when there’s a call to action on human rights.
If it weren’t for the idealistic and creative aspects of my life, I don’t believe I could have survived as an accountant. And if it weren’t for the discipline and structure of my profession as a CGA, I would probably have burnt out by now. I need both.
– As told to Dexter Brown
We were luck enough to be able to arrange to shoot in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. A stunning space to shoot it, we had no problem findings several areas to create images. The
