For so long, we have been hearing about Life Balance and Work-Life Balance. Have you ever felt like you were completely balanced, and every area of your life was perfect? If you think about the eight common areas: Health, Finances, Spiritual/Religion, Family, Friends, Love Relationship, Career, and Recreation, were they all in sync and going well all at the same time? Probably not–at least not very often.
Why not? Life isn’t supposed to be perfect in all areas all of the time. If you rank each area from 1 to 10 (10 being best), you will have some areas that might be a 6 or even less at certain times in your life. The notion that there are actually people out there who have balanced lives with every area going well at the same time, is false. There are many reasons for an unbalanced life.
First, we don’t have control over everything. For instance, everything may be going really well for you, but then your mom or dad has a fall, and someone has to care for them. Second, we tend to spend more time in the areas of our lives that are going well. That happens because that’s where we want to spend our time–it makes us happy–so we pay attention. It also may be that way because we have made those areas of our lives our priority, and that’s why they are going so well.
To have a balanced life, everything has to be going well at the same time. How often have you noticed that happening in your life? Doesn’t it seem like there is always something that comes up just when you think everything is going great? That big bill that pops up out of nowhere, or the high cholesterol report that comes back from your annual physical exam? What about when you get that big promotion at work and your child gets in trouble at school the next day?
Don’t even get me started on the Work-Life Balance idea. There is so much more to life than work, so why do we lump all of the other areas together by minimizing them to equal the same importance as work? Aren’t your health, family, friends and love relationship just as important as your career? I hope so.
I am not telling you this to bring on doom and gloom. You can have a wonderful life, and everyone is entitled to one. It is what you make of it. I am telling you this so that you will understand that striving to have every area of your life in perfect balance is not something you have to worry about. Handle each challenge as they come, and be grateful for the parts of your life that are going well.
