Finding balance in modern life is a topic written about with such frequency that I’ve begun to roll my eyes whenever I see a piece with the words “work-life balance” in the title. I hope you’ll indulge me as I again explore this topic about which so much has already been said. Like Sheryl Sandberg, I dislike the phrase “work-life balance” because it implies that work and life are separate and exclusive domains. To paraphrase Sandberg, who could ever feel good about work when it’s billed as the opposite of life?
Work is but one aspect of life, and it’s an important element. It helps to give meaning to life, to give us purpose, to keep us striving and feeling the thrill of accomplishments (in the best scenario, anyway). I am happiest when I’m industrious and can see the fruits of my labor. Someone once told me that they view life as a four-quadrant matrix made up of family and friendships, profession, health and fitness, and spirituality. At any given time, one of the quadrants may demand more of your attention than the others, but to live our best lives, we have to attend to all of them regularly. I picture the quadrants on the top of one of those toys that you can spin and push in any direction and it will always return to standing. Sometimes one quadrant will be up while another is down, and some teetering may happen, but the four areas will all eventually balance each other and keep the toy steady.
If it seems as though I frequently write about balance in some form or another, it’s because the topic has been on my mind for much of the last decade. The desire to strike a good balance, and the struggle to do so, is not unique to parents, or women, or high-level professionals working long hours. All of us have various people and tasks competing for our time. Sometimes we have little choice but to spend significant amounts of time and energy in caretaking activities or tending to our own major illnesses. But even barring these situations, we all have to figure out how to keep ourselves fed, groomed, and physically well while also nurturing relationships with those important to us, supporting ourselves financially, pursuing hobbies and leisure activities, and trying to make sense of the world through a religious or philosophical lens. Even before having a child, I’ve always felt myself pulled in several directions at once and have usually felt as though I wasn’t giving as much time as I would have liked to several of these dimensions.
I feel like I have settled into a pretty good equilibrium for now, but I recognize that my life is ever-changing. The balance that exists today will shift as my son grows and has different needs and activities, as my family grows, as I change jobs, as aging family members require care. Flexibility is key. I don’t know exactly what my life will look like in a few years. I do know that right now, I’m lucky to have a job that I can mostly leave at the office when I head out the door at 5:00; and a son who goes to bed around 8:00 and wakes around 6:30, affording me a couple of hours each day to focus on other things; a co-parent who is able and willing to share the parenting workload equally; and I and my family are mostly healthy. There is only so much I can fit into those couple of hours each day when I’m not working or with my son, so I try to plan carefully but not to expect too much of myself. There are days when sleep takes priority over exercise and meditation. There are weekends when the demands of maintaining a home or commitments with friends and family squeeze out my writing time. I’ve made peace with that.
One strategy that helps me to find balance is to recognize little unexpected time opportunities and be prepared to seize them. This requires some planning and may include keeping a book with you for times when you are left waiting for something, or using commute time to call and catch up with friends and family, cleaning a little when you have just a few spare minutes at home, or doing mini-workouts or meditation sessions in the few minutes between meetings or when shifting tasks. Repurposing the bits of time that can otherwise be wasted in unsatisfying ways (i.e., mindlessly consuming content via smartphone, television, or radio) allows me to attend to quadrants briefly throughout the day that might otherwise be temporarily neglected, thereby helping me feel more in balance.
Sometimes finding equilibrium is just a matter of listening to our own cues. For instance, when I neglect the spiritual quadrant — into which I place such activities as meditation, quiet reflection, writing, and reading about or discussing the big picture beyond the immediate and tangible — I begin to feel moody. I can tell that I need to tend to the spiritual quadrant when I feel myself becoming disproportionately annoyed or angry, or when I struggle to find joy in the grind of daily life. I know myself well enough at this point in my life that I can usually recognize those cues and direct my attention to what I need. Sometimes I let the friends and family quadrant slip a bit, but if I begin to feel isolated, I know that I need to prioritize spending time with loved ones. When my professional life is given less attention than it deserves, I begin to feel restless and bored, eager for new challenges, and so I try to find some. As for the health quadrant, I’ve learned that not getting enough sleep or eating well over time will lead to me getting sick, and at that point resting will be my only option. When my body feels stiff or antsy, I know I need to move it, and so I do. My meditation practice has helped me to tune into these cues. When things feel not quite right in life, sometimes it’s worth stopping to ask, “What do I need right now?”
Self-forgiveness is also key to finding equilibrium. We need to cut ourselves some slack. We don’t have to be perfect in every realm every day, or even every week or month. It’s ok to scale back sometimes in one area or another. It’s natural to fall out of balance and then fall back into it, over and over again. Sometimes imperfection and a “good enough” mentality is what’s needed to keep all the balls in the air. If you have to let one of your quadrants slip for a little while to meet the demands of the others, know that you can get back to it later. Do what you can, when you can, and when the day is done, let it go. There will be more opportunities tomorrow. Sleep is part of the health quadrant, but in reality it’s crucial for all of the quadrants. You cannot be a good friend or an effective worker if you are exhausted. You will not have the energy to tend to your spirituality, and your health will suffer.
It does no good to beat yourself up about what you didn’t accomplish in a day. Let it go and rest. Tomorrow is another day. In the end, life isn’t about a series of accomplishments anyway. It’s about fully experiencing the being and the doing for as long as we have the chance. So many of the things that stress us out really are not that important. It helps me to think sometimes about how I’m just one tiny dot on a huge planet, in a gigantic universe, here for but a minuscule sliver of time, one of many, many millions of people throughout history who have come and gone and who will come and go. When you put things in those terms, it’s a little easier to say “So What?” to so many daily dramas. In the grand scheme of things, all we can really do is just be, and enjoy.
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