Balance! How many times has the expression, ‘You’ve got to find a balance!’ been either offered to you as advice by someone or said by you yourself? It is all well and good to say something like this, achieving it is something else entirely … a good case of ‘easier said than done’, I think. Interesting how, after offering this advice, most people don’t follow through with how they are supposed to achieve this magical balance.
So what is this ‘balance’ we so desperately wish for? What exactly are we trying to achieve? I asked myself this when I would have moments of sheer resentment about the life I was living and this is what I came up with. Balance is the merging between my physical and inner lives. It is a way of living and not a tangible thing we hope to get one day. It is found in that moment when you both understand and acknowledge that what you feel and need on the inside is just as important as all the other aspects of your life and you do something about it. Balance exists when you recognize how important your inner voice needs to express itself in your world. It is never giving up on who you are for the sake of being the most responsible, most efficient and most hard-working individual. No matter how hard you try to ignore what is within you, or how busy you make yourself to avoid these things, you will always be called … your need to express what lives within you (no matter what form this takes) will always be there and, it will be a voice that gets stronger and louder and more insistent every time you ignore it.
You live with YOU for the whole of YOUR life! It is a long time to spend ignoring you!
It is vital that you stop and listen to yourself AND follow what you are drawn to pursue. These are your dreams … those aspects of you that allow you to contribute the most to our world. Doing what you love, what moves you, what inspires you even, is what your life, AS WHO YOU ARE, is all about. You are, simply, meant to be living this part of you just as much as the things we label … i.e. your job, your marital status, etc; You need to bring all that is within you to the outer life you have and vice-versa in order to balance yourself as an individual.
Just how do we slow our lives down enough so that we can see / recognize that we’re in one? Getting caught up with daily existence is so easy – much easier than stepping back and using our minds to focus on our own lives instead of tomorrow’s dinner or what time we need to be somewhere or what washing needs doing or…
I can assure you, these things, and more, will still be there tomorrow, the next day and even the day after that. There will always be dishes that need washing, clothes to be ironed, homework to help with, bills to be paid and schedules to keep. There won’t be, however, an endless supply of time for you to do what you love if you a) don’t believe you are worth it or b) you don’t make time for you. And here folks is that million dollar question … I can hear you say it because I have said it too … and more than once too … “How do you expect me to fit one more thing in my day?” … or … “How would you like me to do that?” Our lives are chock-a-block – work, family, shopping, sports, gym, finding 30, cooking, driving, mowing lawns, sleeping if we’re lucky, walking the dog and I’m sure you get the picture because I’m sure your life is filled with things to do too. We are in complete overload. Our minds and our time are taken up – all of it. And now I’m asking you to do more, you say incredulously? Sure thing lady!
So, what is time management, how do we use it and what’s it got to do with balance? Find out next …
