Always in a race against time we trade one activity for another in an effort to bring the illusion of balance to an actual experience of day to day equilibrium.
Creating balance. These two words strung together in this context disturb me. Seriously…what’s a balanced life and by whose definition? And while we’re on the topic, since life is not static, how can one possibly achieve continued success in the act of maintaining balance? What goes into the very heart and soul of our lives must then become an act of fluidity, constantly seeking to find purpose and bring harmony into the ever changing complexities of all the pieces of life’s delicious pie.
Last week, I realized that in order to have, do and be everything I currently need to have, do and be I found myself making deals with my to do list all over the place. I was at the gym looking at the clock, knowing that to walk the dog I’d have to leave in 15 minutes. I walked the dog checking my watch knowing that in ½ an hour I’d have to shower and pull myself together for a meeting. I prepped for the meeting thinking about what I have to cook for supper. O.k., it’s true, while at the meeting I was 100% focused…after all, I could be hired to update all their web content. But, the minute I got into the car my mind raced to all the errands I haven’t tended to, all the calls I haven’t made and the supper I have to plan. Ahhh. Home again. Settling into my office, I take a breath, only to realize…today’s my carpool day. How will I spend my one hour before I’m back in the car? Do I finish the job with a loose deadline or do I write this MiBism? Do I prepare dinner so I’m organized and available to help with my daughter’s homework or do I get on the phone to make those doctor’s appointments I keep pushing off? Do I call my mom to see how she’s doing or should I just throw in the towel and sit down to a cup of coffee and the newspaper? I find I’m often making deals with myself, trading, buying time, skimping on one item on the list to make it to another. Accepting that there are only so many hours in a day and prioritizing your list certainly helps in finding creative new ways to tap into the joy of living.
We have all scheduled ourselves to the very edges of time. We’re writing, blogging and talking about finding balance. We’re debating, arguing and striving for the perfect symmetry of a life well lived. I can see us all sitting on the scale of life analyzing and criticizing our very existence in the pursuit of this idea of balancing work, family, leisure, relationships and spirituality.
Work-life balance…what a cliché. To hyphenate “work-life” as I just did presents an image of imbalance. Think about it: Work on one side and Life on the other. Isn’t work just 1/5th of life’s pie, life being 4/5s; family, leisure, relationships, spirituality/religion? Balance cannot be presumed; if we’re giving tipped over too heavily on the side of Work and feeling overwhelmed by that experience then hey, work got too big a slice of the pie! Balance, whatever that may mean to the individual is created. We are all responsible for first defining what that means for us and with everyone it’s going to be something different. We are the creators of the balance of our scales and the choices we make will determine whether we tip more heavily to the right or to the left.
Life doesn’t come wrapped in a neat little package. It will have its ups and downs to mess things up a bit. When it does we get up, brush ourselves off and jump right back on to the scale of life, ever in the struggle to grab the illusive fruit of a balanced life.
Finding our “I’m ok with that for now” is better than the futile ongoing pursuit of balance.