How many hours do you work?

I sat in my psychiatrist's office today talking about my brain and he asked me the question I hate so much: "how many hours are you working?"

This is an odd question because there's two ways to answer it:

  1. Do you take the total of the hours you spend in the office + the time you spend in front of your computer doing work at home?
  2. Do you take the sum of 1 and add to it the amount of time you think about work and work problems and their possible solutions?

Because I think for me, the answer to number 1 is probably somewhere between 60 - 70 per week. But the answer to number 2 is probably closer to 90 - 100.

I also think about this topic a lot when people ask me about "work-life balance"? What the hell does that even mean? The time I spend thinking about work versus not thinking about work? I don't fucking have work-life balance. I try for it, but I don't have it, not even a little. I think about work ALL of the time, literally. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it.

How do you answer this question?