People talk about having a balanced life, that the ideal life should be in equilibrium with all of the demands that are placed on us. Whether it be work, family, friends, commitments, community, hobbies, and even our vacations, they should all be corralled into a neat and tidy bundle of time management where nothing overlaps and all of our deadlines are met.
We spend our spare pockets of time trying to magically suspend all of our commitments in this juggling act of life and wow the crowd in hope of some commendation. “Wow, Mike, how do you do it all? How do you keep everything going and your schedule so coordinated?”
But what happens when “life” happens? Have we built up too many of our expectations and the pressure to be balanced? What happens when too many aspects of your schedule and life begin creating friction in your life and you have to start making some serious decisions? Example…the demands of work increase because you’re being a good employee and all of a sudden the temptation to bring work home is a new tension on your horizon. Work has started to invade your family time. Now what?
The truth is that as much as we might disagree, maybe even deny this fact, life is naturally unbalanced. And that’s just how it is. We will constantly be fighting the demands of all of these elements and that’s a tension in itself. If the tension wasn’t there then we would not be forced to make priorities, practice self-discipline, and have our paradigm challenged and corrected as we mature. There’s a healthy aspect of these tensions and we have to realize that not everything may be in order and that demands change as life changes.
Life is naturally unbalanced. It’s about finding the rhythm of “need” instead of appeasing the demands and expectations.