Sometimes I think the myth of work/life balance was designed to drive people crazy. People are encouraged, prodded even, to give all aspects of their life equal value and equal effort all the time. Be awesome at work! Have the neatest, tidiest house on the block! Be the perfect spouse!
It’s exhausting. And to a life-long worrier, it’s like cat-nip. If cat-nip was addicting but not at all enjoyable.
It should be called a work/life balancing act – something that is dipping from one side to another, always in flux. The word “balance” alone implies that you should shoot for a neat state of equilibrium all the time. And that is ridiculous.
It is human nature to think that the grass is greener on the other side.
I always look at other people with envy and awe at how much better at adulting everyone else around me seems to be.
Only snippets of people’s lives are visible to us. We don’t see our co-workers frantically trying to hustle their kids out the door in the morning because they’re late for school, or their hour-long commute to work, or the guilt they feel for ordering pizza for dinner because they are too exhausted to even think about making dinner.
Often, we only see people at their best, not at their frantic worst. Everyone, everyone, has rough spots in the lives. No one sails through life on a perfectly calm sea.
Acknowledge that life is like that sometimes
My mom often said “Life is like that sometimes” when I was kid and it drove me crazy. I remember always thinking, “Well, maybe life shouldn’t be like that mom!” Well, my mom was right. Life is messy and the sooner we can accept this, the better.
I don’t think its any coincidence that the first three letters in acknowledge are A-C-K.
Figure out an everyday ritual or routine you can carve out each day
I find that when I take the time in the morning to have some quiet time to myself, have my cup of coffee, journal a little, and read, I feel a lot better. It’s a nice way to start off my day and when the rest of my day goes sideways, as it inevitably does, I can take some solace in having done something for myself.
This ritual can look different for everyone, and it doesn’t have to be the first thing in the morning. Maybe at the end of the night, you can have a mini-spa moment and slather on all the skin-care potions you want. Or start your day with prayer and a moment of gratitude. Whatever your ritual looks like, it can serve as a calming mental anchor when everything else in your day is beyond your control.
Exercise a different part of your brain
I am fortunate that my work involves a variety of tasks and projects. One day I might be designing some graphics for social media, another day I might be writing a marketing plan. I find that being able to switch between two disparate tasks helps with my well-being immensely. If I feel like one task is turning into a brain drain, I can do something else completely different.
What if your job doesn’t involve a lot of variety? Take up a hobby. And I don’t mean watching endless amounts of YouTube (guilty). I think when people hear “hobby” they think of buying a ton of art supplies and painting the next Mona Lisa.
The key to having an enjoyable hobby is to make it sustainable – a hobby that doesn’t take up a lot of time, mental effort or physical space. I used to paint and draw, but honestly, it feels like such a task to break out my paints and brushes sometimes. So, I read or rip into my bajillion magazines and make a mini-collage. Very satisfying and with minimal fuss.
You gotta let that stuff go
Julie says this to me all the time, in a variety of situations. And you know what, it’s true.
The bottom line is this: The idea of balance that society tries to force upon us doesn’t actually work with this thing called life. Stop feeling guilty for not achieving the ideal of balance and instead work on what makes you feel balanced.
Remember: guilt serves no one.
There is always going to be something in your life that is out-of-balance. Great things can, and often do, happen out of messy accidents: penicillin, microwave ovens, Post-Its, the Slinky, the Pacemaker.
Do I think I am going to create the next great invention out of the detritus of my life? No. Do I think the best things often come out of the messiness and happen-stance of life? Yes.
For example…
I was a military child growing up and that meant moving a lot. From Kindergarten to High School, I changed schools nine times and moved six times. As a teenager, I remember thinking to myself “when I grow up, I do not want to marry a military man because I don’t want to move around a lot.” Then Fate said, “Hold my beer” and I married a railroader instead.
We have moved four times in eleven years and have never lived in one place more than four years. Moving around so much can be hard (getting a house ready to sell is exhausting). But I have made some great friends along the way and built my skillset in a way that has helped my career immensely.
And all that moving around as a kid was good for me too. It’s how I met my husband.
In college, I was worried about what in the world I was going to do with a History degree. One day, I literally stumbled upon a poster in the College of Arts & Sciences building that listed all the career fields you can go into with a liberal arts degree. And one of those fields was Public Relations. That set me on the career path in marketing that I am still on today.
In the moment, it’s difficult to see how all of this will play out in the end
It’s only in looking back that we can see that the hardest times can create fortitude, a skill or a friendship that helps us in the present. My first real job out of college, working for a PR agency, was like a PR bootcamp. It was hard. It was stressful. But I learned so much and there are skills I picked up during that time in my life that I still use today.
Plus, it’s how I met Julie. And thirteen years later, when she was looking for someone to join her agency, and I had just moved back to Texas, it all came together.
No one knows how life is going to turn out. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. So, instead of trying to chase down something that doesn’t exist and seemingly only serves to drive people crazy – like work/life balance – embrace the mess and accept the uncertainty. Your house will be a wreck, you will miss your kid’s soccer game, you will blow it at work.
It’s in the small, everyday efforts and messy moments of life that you are building up to something greater. You just don’t know it yet.
Remember, life is in the living. So, go live it.