The Great Balance Boondoggle

Life isn't a static phenomenon. It's dynamic, ever-moving, and ever-shifting. So while the idea of achieving a static state of "work/life balance" is appealing to the part of us that desires the comfort of certainty, it doesn't have much to do with the real world.

More accurate is the picture painted in the book Juggling Elephants by Jones Loflin and Todd Musig. In it, they describe life as a multiple-ring circus, and we're the ring-masters tasked with keeping the whole show moving ahead as smoothly as possible.

Rather than paying equal attention and putting equal effort into everything going on in every ring (which is essentially impossible), the idea is to follow the ebb and flow of where that energy and effort needs to go to keep the whole show in sync. As they describe it in an article on the Juggling Elephants site:

The reality is that the idea of balance is baloney! There will always be changing circumstances that will require extra energy on our part in that moment. The key is to look at where you have spent your time and energy over a period of time. Did you act based on purpose? When we look at choosing our routines and making plans, it's not about balance. It's about choosing the right task at the right moment to accomplish the right purpose.

Part of what I love about this idea is that it both allows flexibility and addresses the need to take a happy, healthy approach to multiple facets of life. It lets you evaluate your overall sense of balance by looking at the big picture rather than obsessing on the details of how life unfolds day to day.

For example, I have a friend who seems to be wired to love the adrenaline rush of crunch work. For her, the occasional highly focused deadline driven all nighter is part of what makes it interesting and challenging.  In the long run, if that remained the exception rather than the rule, there would be no problem. On the other hand, if she were to make that her constant ongoing approach, it wouldn't be sustainable. It would negatively impact other rings in her circus, like health, relationships, etc.

Taking a high level view lets you get away from the way things unfold day-to-day and evaluate how it looks in the big picture.

[Thanks to BookBitch for the heads up on The Elephant Juggler.]

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Comments

[jen_chan, writer SureFireWealth.com]

This is a nice way of looking at work and life in general. And it does ring true. Oftentimes, we try to keep everything in balance that we set ourselves up for frustration. Sometimes, one issue just happens to need more of our time and energy, depending on the situation. And you couldn't have said it any better: this idea "allows flexibility and addresses the need to take a happy, healthy approach to multiple facets of life." Thank you very much for that thought.