In a quote variously attributed to Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli, lies are described as lies, damn lies and statistics.  In fact, statistics are just numerical ways of expressing things and have no particular valence, but they can certainly be used to mislead people, and when they’re presented without clarification they can easily be misunderstood.

To me, the phrase ‘work-life balance’ means that at work you don’t have a life.  Unfortunately this is a widely-held view – work is something you have to do to earn money, but while you’re there you have to give up ‘your’ time.  An inevitable consequence of believing in work-life balance is the feeling that work is cheating you out of your life.

How often do we hear someone say they’re stressed because they’re moving house?  They say they must be stressed, because moving house is ‘way up there on the list’.  The list is one of the life-event scales – lists of things that might happen in your life, and you’re asked to tick all of the ones that have actually happened to you in the past 6 months.  The more ticks there are the more ‘stress’ you’re supposed to be under.