AS AN employee myself, I agree that work-life balance may be achieved only if employees are willing to compromise on salaries, financial perks and standard of living ("Work-life balance: Employees also have a role to play" by Mr Rajan Chettiar; June 13).

It is common for me and my colleagues to bring our laptops home and work after office hours, as is apparently the case in many countries. Co-workers or friends in Penang, China or Europe tell me they do the same thing.

The world is a very competitive place and we are competing with every other nation in the world to survive. We cannot opt to do it differently because we are just "a little red dot".

But we have a choice in the kind of work-life balance we want to achieve. We can do this by changing to a lower-paying job, or maybe even a part-time job.

However, for many people, having a bigger house or a bigger car is still a priority, as they want to keep up with the Joneses. For these people, there will be no end to the rat race.

But we must accept that achieving work-life balance is within our control and we should not point to others as the problem.

Sim Lim Onn