No Such Thing as Balance
It is 8:30pm in my house. It is quiet, the only sounds are the acoustic music playing on Spotify and eggs boiling on the stove. The wee one is in bed and I have just opened my computer to get some work accomplished. This is the last week before I am back in class and this time will be filled with paper writing and discussion questions.....and then likely some more work, because let's face it...the work is just never done. My beam is always full and I am told I do not have a work/life balance, and so I ponder.........what is this balance thing others speak of.
This is a life I have chosen:To be a parent, have a career and obtain a PhD degree.These are not things that happened to me, I made cognitive choices and these choices just so happen to make me very busy and force me to juggle, not balance. The truth is, I'm good at it for a while. I can make the carpool, PTSO, school and work look easy. It can all live on the beam (if you don't know this reference of the beam, do yourself a huge favor and read Jen Hatmaker's "For the Love"), (No... like really, go do it now) until.....something falls off in a huge way and the meltdown occurs. Balance is a tricky thing and not everything can live on the beam at the same time. Some of us can compartmentalize and keep the priority A items on the beam until the priority B items move up in importance. For me, there is no such thing at balance, it is a full on circus and I am the juggler. There is always at least one or two things up in the air and I am just lucky if something doesn't drop.
I don't know how to live life any other way. My ambition and need to succeed at EVERYTHING makes juggling a necessity, and the sad thing is, I wish I could do more. I wish I could do much more. I run out of hours, energy, money and resources. I often find myself pouring from an empty cup and yet somehow there is always just one more drop. My beam is overflowing, and the truth is....I LOVE IT! I wouldn't have it any other way. Balance isn't for everyone, some of us like to have things up in the air while we catch what we can. I don't know that balance is something that even exists for me.
There is no segregation in my life between work and life, because work is life and life can sometimes feel a lot like work. Time magazine did an article in 2015 which called this phenomenon "work-life integration". As we get busier and our safe little life silos get muddied, we have no choice but to integrate our life into work. For some this looks like text messages throughout the day from the significant other or answering the call from the kiddos teacher because he bit another student that day (true story, happened last week). Sometimes work seeps into our lives. This occurs when we go to a co-workers house on the weekend and "talk shop" or we answer an urgent email because we know it's the right thing to do . We need to stop beating ourselves up regarding this standard of work-life balance. It works for some, but for most of us it just isn't realistic. I for one have stopped trying to obtain a perfectly balanced beam. There are things that are on the beam, there are things that have definitely fallen off, and there are some things that are above my head just waiting for me to catch them....and that's exactly how I like it.
This is a life I have chosen:To be a parent, have a career and obtain a PhD degree.These are not things that happened to me, I made cognitive choices and these choices just so happen to make me very busy and force me to juggle, not balance. The truth is, I'm good at it for a while. I can make the carpool, PTSO, school and work look easy. It can all live on the beam (if you don't know this reference of the beam, do yourself a huge favor and read Jen Hatmaker's "For the Love"), (No... like really, go do it now) until.....something falls off in a huge way and the meltdown occurs. Balance is a tricky thing and not everything can live on the beam at the same time. Some of us can compartmentalize and keep the priority A items on the beam until the priority B items move up in importance. For me, there is no such thing at balance, it is a full on circus and I am the juggler. There is always at least one or two things up in the air and I am just lucky if something doesn't drop.
I don't know how to live life any other way. My ambition and need to succeed at EVERYTHING makes juggling a necessity, and the sad thing is, I wish I could do more. I wish I could do much more. I run out of hours, energy, money and resources. I often find myself pouring from an empty cup and yet somehow there is always just one more drop. My beam is overflowing, and the truth is....I LOVE IT! I wouldn't have it any other way. Balance isn't for everyone, some of us like to have things up in the air while we catch what we can. I don't know that balance is something that even exists for me.
There is no segregation in my life between work and life, because work is life and life can sometimes feel a lot like work. Time magazine did an article in 2015 which called this phenomenon "work-life integration". As we get busier and our safe little life silos get muddied, we have no choice but to integrate our life into work. For some this looks like text messages throughout the day from the significant other or answering the call from the kiddos teacher because he bit another student that day (true story, happened last week). Sometimes work seeps into our lives. This occurs when we go to a co-workers house on the weekend and "talk shop" or we answer an urgent email because we know it's the right thing to do . We need to stop beating ourselves up regarding this standard of work-life balance. It works for some, but for most of us it just isn't realistic. I for one have stopped trying to obtain a perfectly balanced beam. There are things that are on the beam, there are things that have definitely fallen off, and there are some things that are above my head just waiting for me to catch them....and that's exactly how I like it.
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