“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…”Ecclesiastes 3:1
I have written about how I have grown to love daily routines. They provide a rhythm of important habits that help me as a person and as a leader. These include prayer, meditation, exercise, journaling, writing and yes, even flossing. Most of these happen in the morning and require that I get a good night’s sleep.
Photo by Roslyn Walker CC BY 3.0
Juggler
Talk about balance! Kaleigh Grainger juggles while riding a unicycle.
I had a week recently that got wrecked. In fact, I had just been bragging to myself in my journal how I had not missed a day of journaling in several months. I should have known better. It’s like on the TV show "Survivor" when they show someone bragging that they are in control of the game, you know they’re getting voted off the island next.
It started on Monday. I was supposed to pick up my mom at the airport at 5:05 p.m. Storms caused flight delays and by the time I got her home, I didn’t get to sleep until nearly 1:00 a.m., more than three hours past my bedtime.
No worries. On Tuesday morning I cut short my journaling. I use a practice called Morning Pages, which calls for three longhand pages of stream of consciousness writing. I hadn’t had much sleep and didn’t have much time, so I knew I needed to be flexible. So instead of three pages I did one.
I knew that I could grind through the day, go to bed early, get a good night’s sleep and get back on track. Wrong.
Tuesday evening we had to take my father-in-law to the emergency room. Nothing life threatening, but medical attention was required. He got great care and we got to bed a little before 2:00 a.m.
No big deal. I would get back on track Wednesday morning by sleeping in until 8:00 a.m., and do my routine, except for exercising. Wrong.
I was in the middle of morning prayer when I found out my brother-in-law (and next door neighbor) had badly rolled his ankle and it was likely broken (it was). So, back to the same emergency room for X-rays and treatment.
Here’s the good news. Everyone is OK, even if there is some inconvenience and some pain, we are all alive and living life.
But this got my thinking about work-life balance.
Most people I know feel overwhelmed about something. Whether it’s work, family, volunteer commitments or social obligations, there doesn’t seem to be enough time.
Here is what I learned.
Work-life balance is not a noun.
It’s not something to be achieved. It’s not a goal. You can’t ever achieve balance because life is fluid, dynamic, ever-changing.
Instead of balance, think of balancing. The image I like is a unicycle rider. There is constant motion. Back and forth. The rider may occasionally achieve a state of equilibrium, but it doesn’t last long.
Balancing is something you do, not something you achieve.
I learned this concept from the book, The ONE Thing, by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. They write, “Seen as something we ultimately attain, balance is actually something we constantly do. A ‘balanced life’ is a myth — a misleading concept most accept as a worthy and attainable goal without ever stopping to truly consider it.”
The authors use the term “counter-balancing” to describe balancing as a verb. They write in a blog post, “Counter-balance is the process of focusing exclusively on the important task at hand, whether it’s work, teaching our kids something or working out. We have to choose what’s critical and give it as much time as it needs before switching to the next most important thing.“
There are times when your family needs you. Don’t ignore it. There are times when work is intense. That’s OK, but it can’t last forever. If it does, something has to give. Your spiritual life, physical health or important relationships will eventually suffer if you don’t balance things out.
When you focus on counter-balancing, instead of achieving a balanced life, you can give yourself completely to the moment, knowing that you will be balancing things out. The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that everything has a season. When we remember this we can live more fully.
So, when my sleep schedule, morning routines and work days got wrecked because my family needed me, there was no need to stress about it. It was a part of life. And the balancing act continues.
The Rev. Jack Shitama serves as the Executive Director of Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries in Centreville, MD. He blogs at Jack Shitama's Blog for Christian Leaders, from which this post is republished with the author's permission.