Balancing Acts
Sometimes it feels like life is one big circus act. Plates spinning all over the place, walking the tightrope of schedules to coordinate, juggling priorities… and through it all, we try to maintain some semblance of balance.
But what does balance even mean?
Let’s start with the dictionary definition just as a baseline.
Balance. noun.
an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.
a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.
Equal. Steady. Stable.
Sounds great, right? Like an ideal way to live your life.
But now let’s add in a dose of reality.
Our days don’t always add up to “equal.” Nor do our moods. Or emotions. Or families. Or relationships. Or workloads.
So what does it actually mean to live a balanced life?
Balanced living takes into consideration all aspects of your life, from work to family to hobbies to fitness to rest to nutrition and everything in between. Living in balance means making space for your physical, emotional, mental, financial, spiritual, social, and environmental needs - and wants.
That is quite a tall order. How in the world are we supposed to do that??
For starters, take a breath. Balance is going to look different for everyone. No two people have the same set of needs, wants, and priorities. No two individuals have the same background, history, experiences, circumstances, and desires. So you can’t find balance by comparing yourself to others who seem to have found it.
The second thing to remember is that balance won’t even look the same for yourself every day. Despite the above definition indicating that balance requires a precise equal or proportional allocation of… whatever it is you are measuring, that just isn’t realistic. While every day has 24 hours, those hours cannot be accounted for identically each day, nor can our focus be equally divided within those hours. Some days, no matter how much we want to cook home-cooked meals and clean the entire house, work takes an unexpected turn and requires more hours than we’d anticipated. Some days, our partner may be sick. Or sad. Or busy. Or traveling. So we need to divert more of our energy or attention to caring for them. Or comforting them Or helping them. Some days we may be sick ourselves and we need to rest, forgoing the work tasks, home chores, or even our social interactions.
Does this mean that we are out of balance on those days?
Only if you are expecting to see balance in each snapshot.
These days, these moments, these snapshots, are contributors to our balance. They are each a piece of the puzzle. A pebble placed on the scales of life. And no single moment shows the full picture.
Some days you feel like you’re absolutely slaying it - meals like you would see in a magazine, a great workout, all of your kids are happy and healthy, and you handed in all of your work deliverables on time and to stellar reviews.
Other days, though, you feel like it’s slaying you instead - you miss the deadlines, the kids miss the bus, you couldn’t squeeze in your workout, and you’re lucky if you can get anyone to eat a bowl of cereal, much less a vegetable.
Neither one of those days is better than the other. And neither one of those is proof or refutation of balance.
The balance is in the messy middle ground of the reality of your life. It is made up of the good days and the bad. It is maintained through the realization that life is a random conglomeration of all of it - the pop tarts and the gourmet meals. The 10 mile runs and the days spent on the couch. As I have always told my kids - eating nothing but kale is not healthier or better or more balanced than eating nothing but donuts. True balance holds space for both, and for lots of unexpected things in between.
Balance isn’t a state of doing, it’s a state of being. Living in balance means understanding that you need moments of movement and periods of rest. It means remembering that your life will be full of highs and lows. It means accepting that everyone’s needs will change on a dime and that there is no predictable, perfect or equal proportion of time, energy, attention, love or effort that will make everything turn out in some magazine-perfect way.
One more thing to remember - just like physical balance begins with a strong core, so too does balance in your life. It’s not about taking the right actions, it’s about acting in alignment with your purpose. It’s not about projecting the right image, it’s about protecting your core values.
When you allow yourself the grace to accept the great days and the terrible days, and the humility to let go of the idea of perfection, you will find that your life may actually be more in balance than you thought.