I was at church the other weekend,the message was about what Jesus said about resting,taking a break.
In the course of the message the idea of work/life balance came up. It got me thinking about 2 questions: Is work separate from life? Is a work/life balance attainable?
My answer to both is NO. First, I believe life in-capsulates work. Work is part of our lives- not a totally separate entity. Second,I believe the work/life balance is not attainable. Work, play, school, habits, hobbies, socializing, kids, marriage, dating, volunteering, succeeding, failing, learning...all these things and more are all a part of our total lives. One can no more take 1 part of life and balance it against the rest of life and expect to have a "balance" that is responsible or effective.
This raised another question...What is BALANCE? Is it standing on one foot without falling over? Yesss, but that is not the balance I'm talking about.I am talking about how we manage our lives,our health.
For all of us, from the time we start thinking for ourselves, our lives start to get complicated. This is when we start to create different facets that effect and make up our lives, our health. We start playing sports and we go to school; we start singing or playing instruments and playing sports and going to school; we discover a social life, start singing or playing instruments and playing sports and going to school; As we get older we may add a job into the mix. In other words our lives are multi-faceted. At different stages of our lives we add "things" and then realize those "things" also get to be added to other "things",with other people, in many situations. This my friends is called the "evolution of our lives".It happens to all of us. Granted this process doesn't happen at the same rate or in exactly the same way. All of our results are definitely not the same and all of our lives do evolve and grow. Never in a straight line, almost never as we expect.
As this evolution occurs we get to learn, constantly, how to manage or balance our lives, our health. Now that balance is attained in different ways. It looks very different for different people. There is no right way or wrong way but there is an effective way. And finally, balance is constantly shifting to accommodate the shifting our lives undergo, constantly.
The above questions leads to this question-How is this BALANCE achieved? Well, the simple answer is...pay attention to the results/feedback your life is giving you. Here's the catch...the hard part is accepting the feedback/results your life is giving. The other hard part is paying the price everyday to attain and maintain that balance.
There are four pillars I utilize everyday- the first two-responsibility and accountability-simplified- ownership. I work at, everyday, owning everything in and about my life- the good, the bad, the happy and the sad. The second two-commitment and contribution- simplified- the price to pay- I work at, everyday, to do what is wanted and needed to make today more effective than yesterday. Is it to say I am perfect everyday at utilizing these pillars, far from it! But my goal is not to be perfect but to have a more effective day today then I did yesterday-I'm looking to attain and maintain an effective balance, daily.
To pull all of this together... our life, our health, our balance- Is constantly changing; Is not perfect; Is ours! Make it count!
REMEMBER...
I AM THE DIFFERENCE!!!