The general of a military force can’t ask for flextime. Neither can the CEO of a major corporation.

Sorry work-life balance gurus, that’s just the reality.

Gen. Petraeus fainted during a grilling in front of Congress. The CEO of Sara Less Brenda Barnes suffered a stroke last month. The attorney general of Delaware, Beau Biden recently had a stroke. And the head of SAP in India died late last year of a heart attack.

There’s no crying in baseball and there’s no downtime for leaders.

Yeah, Petraeus, a cancer survivor, is a tough four-star general, and yes Barnes helped turn a floundering company around, but still, both of them and the rest are human. They will buckle under pressure; and they probably would benefit from a little flextime, but alas, that’s just not reality.

Clearly, working like a dog makes you sick.

Here’s the findings of a recent University of Glasgow study:

People who work more than 10 hours a day are approximately 60% more likely to develop heart disease or have a heart attack than people who work seven hours per day.

There are certain positions, certain jobs, that you can’t work-life balance into submission. It’s about time we realized that. I know, we all, especially women, want to think it’s all a matter of creating the right situation but too often you have to work your butt off, miss time with family, make yourself sick, if you want the big career, or if you want to change the world. Men have known this for years but they’ve just been lying to you.

Making the world a better place isn’t easy, neither is getting a corner office.

You are living in some sort of delusional state if you think you can have it all. When I say all, I mean spending hours on a play date with your toddler and running a corporation, a state, a military force, etc.

We need some people to sacrifice some of the touchy-feely personal stuff or this world will crumble.

Did you see McCain’s face when Petraeus went down for the count? No one seemed terribly shocked. “The guys tired,” seemed to be the accepted line by most of the pundits out there.

Hey, do you blame him?