how much should we work?

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O, how much should we work? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous overtime, or to take arms against a sea of deadlines and by opposing end them? To work, to rest, no more, and by a rest to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that work is heir to? 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To work, to rest, to rest perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub, for in that rest of sleep what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, and must give us pause.

There's the respect that makes calamity of so long hours. For who would bear the whips and scorns of outrageous projects and tasks, the pangs of despised lunch breaks, the law's delay, the insolence of co-workers, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare minimum of eight hours? Who would these fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after work, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. Soft you now, the fair work-life balance! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd.