Everything in moderation. (Including moderation.)
Tagged by Rashenbo over at Writing Aspirations, with a meme started by Lillie at A Writer’s Words, an Editor’s Eye: To participate, write a post about balance in life and link back to this post. Answer any or all of the following questions or simply share your thoughts about life balance.
I balance a hosting/development/consultation business, contract gigs, volunteer work, writing, dancing, walking, playing with my cats, visiting my friends, and all the other joy that is life (housework, laundry, eating, sleeping). I’m constantly adjusting my balance. I’ll always be adjusting things to stay in balance.
How do you achieve balance in your life? I know what I want, I know why I want it, and I know what I’ll do to get it. I try to be conscious of cause and effect, and the cost of any action or inaction - even seemingly little things. When I initially wrote the sentence in the paragraph above, I ended the sentence after the first two items. I’m much more than what I do to earn money, though. I think; I’m a philosopher. I read and learn; I’m a researcher. I explain things that I’ve learned; I’m a teacher. I tell jokes. I color. I read (a lot. A lot a lot.) I’m a mom to three cats. Yet for whatever reasons, so many people in our culture only define themselves in terms of what they do for money, or how they spend the majority of their time. We’re all so much more than that. So why is it so easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that we’re either useless outside of the narrow definition of our current job, or the trap of thinking that we’re the most important being in the world and we’re somehow owed something? Why is it so easy for people to believe that one of those statements is true, or the other is?
Both are equally true, at the same time...and all the time. In the grand scheme of things, we are all utterly interchangeable. Up close and personal, though, we are all utterly irreplaceable. (Whoooooaa.)
What is your biggest challenge in balancing your life? The same as everyone else: getting tangled in the extremes. I do this every once in a while. I’ll either get into a comfort zone and stay there overlong; or I’ll try and implement every single idea I’ve got...all at once. Either of these states is fine for about two or three months. Then I either get bored of the comfort zone, or start to run out of steam and can’t follow through with everything. Like everyone else, I swing into and out of balance. I have to self-correct on a fairly regular basis. As much as I’d love to say that at least the extreme ends of the pendulum’s swing are always getting less extreme, that isn’t the case.
What are your priorities? Stay healthy. Stay happy. Help others stay that way. Lather, rinse, repeat. When I’m healthy, I’m able to do things better, learn things better, teach things better. I’m not concentrating on how my back hurts, or how I feel like I’m falling over when I stand up, or how I’m keeping my eyes open only by main force. My body is a complex machine, and when that machine works well, it doesn’t require any of my conscious attention. When I’m happy, I work better with others. I’m more helpful, more supportive, more patient. When I’m less worried about meeting my basic needs, I’m more able to help others
How have your priorities changed over time and why? When I was eleven or twelve, I envisioned that I’d live in an RV towing my horse trailer. My idea was to avoid paying property tax (something I still can’t quite understand, and thus am not all that eager to begin paying) and be able to go where I wanted, pretty much when I wanted. The living-in-an-RV hasn’t happened...and I haven’t seriously wanted that kind of lifestyle since age 17 (when I realized just how extremely unhappy a horse would be confined to a trailer, and when I realized that I’d need more space for my books.) My health requires a bit more preplanning than I would have anticipated at age 12, before I began having seizures. For a brief time, I felt that if my employer had a major emergency, that was my emergency too. That changed when I worked myself into the hospital at age 23, working 70- and 80-hour work weeks because of my employer’s astoundingly bad planning. I now define my contracts as a deal for my skills and a portion of my time, in return for money. But just as I can’t expect a high amount of money for little effort on my part (or for skills that are not of use to said employer), no employer gets to imperil my health or emotional well-being...in other words, my balance. I can, quite legally, get money any number of ways, from any number of sources. My balance can’t be reset or restored by any purely external source. No amount of money can compensate for the destruction of that balance. I finally decided that, because I get very impatient with the exigencies of The Corporate World, I would be happiest if I were able to run my own business and financially support myself that way. I could combine my love of teaching, my love of learning, and my need to do things as efficiently and as effectively as possible. I’m not making enough money to support myself financially, and I have a difficult time marketing my services because I really dislike being “sold to” — hence the need for the contract gigs. By contracting, I avoid the office politics that I loathe; and I’m constantly learning new skills and new ways of doing things. I’m just lucky that I entered the workforce when I did (early 1990s) and where I did (Silicon Valley). The dot-com boom was virtually built on a highly flexible, highly creative, highly mobile gypsy workforce. I wouldn’t have had that option had I entered the workforce a few years earlier, and I would have had fewer choices if I was located in a different city.
What advice can you share to help all of us balance our own lives? Know yourself. Be honest about what you want and why you want it; and you’ll have fewer regrets. Act toward the world as you want the world to act toward you; and you’ll have fewer things that come snapping round to bite you in the backside. Realize that you can’t control the actions of those around you; but you can - and do - control how you’ll react to what happens to you. And if you’re not happy with yourself at the end of the day...maybe you’re slightly out of balance?
I’m supposed to tag five other people; but right now I’ve only got two. (My brain is threatening to shut down. It’s been a long day.) I tag Ealasaid’s Ego! Ego! Ego!, Wylie’s Words, The Screaming Pages, Pseudotherapy, and The Flatland Chronicles. (I’d tag my friend Apryl, whose family just moved from Appalachia to southern California just in time for the start of wildfire season; but she’ll be too busy with her fifty-eight-bajillion simultaneous projects. :D She also just became allergic to avocados...as in ‘anaphalactic shock’ allergic. Go give her some sympathy.)
Keywords: | philosophy | memes | life balance |
Posted by Laughing Muse • 1007 views • Share this link • Newer • Older
Click here to join