Finding Balance

Currently, it’s Saturday morning. I have yet to use the gym, pack for an upcoming week of work-related travel, do chores, or shower. I also happen to have a 3 month old baby passed out on my chest and my wife took the opportunity to escape on a grocery run. The older I get, the less spare time there seems to be. How did we even go out and see a movie at least once per week before?

For me, the often-used work/life balance saying doesn’t provide insight into what I should actually be doing with my time. ‘Work’ is certainly a component and needs its place in your life. It’s the fuel that makes everything else run. My follies with this category are the same as many others – I have to always better establish when it ends in a day. Believe it or not, my Outlook calendar literally has a ‘Go Home!’ reminder everyday.

Now onto the ‘Life’ side of the equation. This is where virtually anything else going on in our lives is found. The issue here is that I’m horrible with discerning what tasks are productive and not productive, given the general finite amount of time there is in a day. My wife and I are Myers-Briggs Type Indicator geeks, often trying to do an amateur assessment of people’s MBTI score around us. She’s is full ‘J’, a real scheduler, and will lay out what the day looks like before we even get out if bed. I’m a ‘P’ and will pretty much go with the flow, often to my own detriment. As a result, I do many activities perceived as selfish because its things I feel like doing in that moment. You know who that doesn’t fly with, other than my wife? This little one whose using me as a pillow right now.

Creative Writing – a solitary task if there ever was one. Weeks, months, or years can be poured into a single piece long before a second set of eyes even reads it. That time put in still doesn’t even promise it will be well received. There’s a level of dedication time-wise which virtually every other writer also struggles with. I’m one of the lucky ones who actually has a small network of like-minded individuals nearby, and they are able confirm this same struggle. I find my pockets here and there but have reset my previous goals of pumping out a short story a month to now instead just promising to write just 100 words a day. It may be in the editing process or something new but just that little scrap of time keeps the light on. Now, in saying that, I’ve somehow been quite productive over the last 2 weeks and hope to share more on that soon.

To close this out, balance is ever-shifting and you have to move with it. I can’t do everything that was possible 5, 10 years ago anymore but I’ve also gone from single and living at home to married, in a place of our own and now with a child in that span of time. Having people who rely on you can be a really good feeling but letting them down may just be the absolute worst.

Do what makes you happy but know your responsibilities.

Keep turning the page,

Chris