Does anyone really have a balanced life?
Sometimes I’m surfing through the blogging world and I run across an unassuming blog. It’s a woman with 4 kids, the perfect house, the perfect clothes, the perfect kitchen/cooking tutorials, she works part time, volunteers in Mexico, has responsibilities with her church, takes her perfect kids to {dance, karate, soccer, piano} practice, loves her husband’s & goes with him on business trips.
It’s annoying. Because my life is full of just a few things:
- Work
- Family
- Friends
- Volunteering
- Church
And I can’t even seem to keep of those in balance. I struggle to leave work on time and make room for a social life.
I am so dedicated to creating opportunities for growth in my career and higher education, I have to fight to make time to relax.
I feel so obligated to be a good [sister/daughter/friend/coworker/potential girlfriend] that I get over committed to activities.
So here I am saying, my life is out of balance.
Am I the only one that struggles?
I am at a point where focusing on advancing my career or education is an important step. So things are titled heavily in that direction.
I have always know that things what is the most important now, might now be in a month- that our lives shift based on our priorities.
I’m just starting to feel like: Where is the pay off?
Right now, iM not feeling like there are any. So maybe its time to clean the slate and start fresh.
How do you keep your life reasonable & balanced?
♥ Single Girl
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8 comments:
Oh man, when you figure this one out please let me know. I sort of hate to read blogs like that. The Sugar Coated Life. I feel like I am pretty private on mine and still I am showing the truth, just not all of it, lol.
Don't think about the future because ultimately the only thing we ever really have is this moment right now. I know that sounds contradictory to getting things accomplished in the future, but it really isn't. You should read The Power of Now, a really good book.
Also, (and I know this sounds random too lol) you might want to look into whether or not you have ADD, because the way you describe you're feelings is very much in line with how it feels to be undiagnosed and female. After I found out i had ADD and after learning about it (Delivered from Distraction is a good book, as well as You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?--which you can get from amazon.com for a penny used. yes a PENNY.)I felt so much better and understood myself a lot better and stopped comparing myself to other people.
We're all different and all our lives will turn out differently. Maybe the woman who has it "all" really doesn't...sometimes people sacrifice inner joy for worldly riches (perfect fam, perfect man, perfect car). Having a great family is nice. But if, as a mother, you can only teach your kids about outward things(such as the responsibility of showing up to practice on time, or that good kids go to church every sunday, etc.)because you yourself have only ever focused and striven towards some type of society standard, then you deprive your children of the kind of mother needed to instill in them a desire to strive for inner joy and peace rather than the often-chosen path of outward satisfaction.
A Buddhist monk, having no car and many times no family anymore (one can say even no "identity") can be much happier and peaceful and content in life than many soccer moms who go to church on sunday, do yoga on tuesday, have cocktails with the girls on thursday, and take the dog to the doggy park on saturday.
I'm not saying any of these things are bad, lol, of course not! Hell I hope I have those things going for me when I get married and have kids (if I do haha). But too many people who have "perfect" looking lives with schedules similar to what I described above, simply never spent the time learning about the inside, which is why they have "so much" on the outside.
Essentially, I'm not speaking of any of the women who would read this blog because, generally speaking, readers and writers tend to be more inquisitive and self-exploratory.
Maybe I'm making outlandish statements. I really don't know. I never know if what I am saying makes sense (or if I even agree 100% with what I'm typing) or if it is really just a passing thought it my head that I am trying to work out by writing about it...only to later change my mind about what i wrote. So soccer moms don't come attacking me please! Lol...i hope to be a soccer mom one day (I love it and played all my life and if my kids take to some other sport i will be crushed a lil, lol)...I'm just thinking outloud and unorganized!
Lia your words are beautiful..sometimes we find the truth when we think outloud and unorganized because we are not trying to impress anyone...it's unfiltered and it comes straight from the inside out. To the woman who wrote this post, I say, put everything aside...your volunteer work, your church, your friends, your career, what people think of you, etc. Start with a clean slate and write down what YOU want...from deep inside, even if it doesn't make logical sense. If you feel it inside, it's what you are meant to do. If you feel enthusiasm and excitement for what you are doing in your life, then you are on the right path...if anything feels like a chore...you need to reexamine why you are doing it. There should be joy in what you do, whatever it is...so forget about the perfect this or that...that's only the outside wrapper..let that go. Find out what you want and have the courage to do it no matter what anyone tells you. If it's good for you it will surely be good for everyone else! Peace to you, Kathy
I also find it hard to balance life. Some days I spend too much time cleaning and not enough time with my son. I find it hard to have enough energy at the end of the day for a social life now that I am a mom. I crave a career I can do from home, but can't find the inspiration to figure it out. Balance. It's tough. Just do what you can as well as you can and everything will eventually fall into place. You know, after you've learned those nasty life lessons! I hate those. Ha ha.
so from a mom of 4 whose life could appear to be "super" in her blog.....I purposely only post the positive stuff in my blog. It helps me to see the good in my, most definitely unbalanced, hectic, chaotic, life that can often make me cry. I am quite sure most of the blogs you are talking about, are a similar situation. Don't for one second think they are handling their craziness better than you. We just don't talk about it in our blog. Sometimes I go weeks with out posting. "if you don't have anything nice to say......don't say anything at all" Good luck with your balancing act. let me know if you figure it out.
We can have it all just not all at once! As soon as I realised this it helped me so much! So go get al those things you want but enjoy them each individually!
First I am glad I am not the only person out there who is struggling to try to make any sort of sense out of their life. I wrote about it on my personal blog as well and there seems to be a lot of us trying to figure it out. So I am glad I am not alone.
Amo I would love to AVIOD as many life lessons as possible! hee hee If only that is how it worked. And I am glad that most people just want to appear or for sanity's sake leave the crazy out of their posts. I guess I would love to learn from some of the crazy is all.
And Lia I dont think those statements are outlandish. I went in thinking I had ADD years ago when i started University and struggled to wrap my head around my new life. I was so overwhelmed I didnt know where to start. Alas they said deal with it. You are fine, you just need to learn time management.
Which I have, and just seemed to pack my life SOOOO full that the down time is gone. I shoudl go back, that is a really good thought.
I have the opportunity to visit Rural Ethiopia several times, usually about once a year. And there the people have NOTHING. Literally nothing.
The live in a mud hut. They farm. They save their pennies to send their kids to school. They are the happiest, kindest people I have ever met.
And I wonder can I have that sort of a life here?
I wonder the same...part of me thinks we can't have that kind of life in our modern societies...at least not as peaceful as the rural Ethiopians. There is simply too much clutter in our busy busy world to allow for that kinda of peace. I recommend moving to a rural community if u want true peace in this lifetime...i'm serious lol.
But i think we can continue to strive for peace in our lives, here in the chaotic world we live in. Each day will hopefully bring more and more peace :)
I love you guys!
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