Work/Life BALANCE The Golden Idol: How Taught Me to Attain Work/Life Balance By Daniel Johnson

n the opening scene of , the 1981 film starring as Indiana Jones, Jones navigates his way through a booby-trap filled Peruvian temple in search of I 1 an apparently valuable (and long-missing) golden idol. After reaching the temple’s treasure room, Jones sees the idol resting on a pedestal, apparently easily taken by anyone skilled enough to reach it. However, Jones — having done his due diligence — knows that things are not as they appear. He knows that the last and most difficult trap is right in front of him. To successfully retrieve his archeological prize and escape the ancient ruins alive, Jones knows he must replace the weight of the golden idol with something weighing exactly the same. Any imbalance will trigger the last, and most deadly of the ancient security measures.

Jones eyes the golden idol, carefully trying to Jones literally runs for his life to avoid being assess its weight as he pulls a bag from his squished by the tumbling boulder, ultimately satchel, which he begins to fill with sand. After escaping the ruins only to be greeted by hostile filling the bag to the estimated weight of the natives and a rival archeologist who steal the golden idol, he carefully removes the idol from idol from Jones. its perch and immediately replaces its weight While it is hopefully safe to assume no one with the bag full of sand. At first Jones (and the reading this article has a daily grind nearly as audience) believes he’s done it — after all, he is perilous as Jones’ experience in the South Amer- Indiana Jones. However, the relief is short lived, ican jungle, Jones’ unsuccessful effort to pre- as the weight of the sand is too great and the cisely balance the weight of the idol with the ruins begin to crumble around Jones as a mas- weight of a sand-filled bag is symbolic of many sive boulder starts to tumble toward the cun- lawyers’ efforts to achieve work/life balance. ning archeologist. Like Jones, lawyers soon learn that an absolute What follows is one of the more famous open- perfect and sustained balance is impossible. ing action scenes in cinematic history, in which

Vol. 83 — No. 8 — 3/10/2012 The Oklahoma Bar Journal 559