On October 6th 2011, the day that Apple founder Steve Jobs died, I watched this speech of his.
We often hear inspiring things like this – live like it’s the last day of your life.
I have one problem with that sentiment: if today were my last day, I wouldn’t spend it vacuuming the floors or doing my tax return. I wouldn’t discipline my daughter, I wouldn’t pay the bills, would give up the idea of that course I want to do that requires a lot of hard work and I’d give exercise a miss.
Instead, I would spend all day with my family. I’d laugh and play with my daughter, walk hand-in-hand with my husband, spend time with my parents and siblings, catch up with friends, eat amazing food and drink expensive champagne.
Two extremes of life – one being the ideal, the other the necessities. Neither can exist in isolation.
If I spent every moment of every day laughing, drinking and playing, I’d never learn anything. I'd never push myself out of my comfort zone or achieve things that make me feel good long-term.
To enjoy life, I need to have the boring things in order. I need to be earning money to have a house and go on holidays, I have to have a clean home that’s at a minimum level of ‘hygienic’ and I need to discipline my daughter so that she learns to live her life as best she can.
I just don’t want to spend all my time doing those things.
Instead, I aim to live my life with balance. Or, as I like to think, with imbalance – a heavy leaning of time on the things that I’d spend the last day of my life doing, and less time on the necessities.
That’s my ideal in the work/life balance agenda.
Here, I want to explore ways of finding that imbalance. My personality is quite 'all or nothing' so balance is something I struggle with - and I'm sure it's the same with many of you.
I look forward to sharing this little corner of the internet with you, as we look at the balancing of life with work and other necessities, and I’d love to hear from you with questions, tips and ideas.
Let’s find a way to live our lives not like each day is our last, but as each of us really want to live.
11 comments:
I think if you can somehow live your life loving what you do and how you contribute to the world, then you are part way on the road to some kind of balance.
In bed with flu and your post made me feel better x
Your writing today really hit the mark with me.
Nodding away here.
I'm always on the quest for this elusive 'balance'.
:-)
I agree that the 'live each day as if it was your last' philosophy is inspiring but ultimately impractical. Who would ever choose to cook their own dinner, clean the house, pay bills or buy groceries if it was their last day?
I'm looking for that elusive 'imbalance' as well. I agree with Nikki that if you love what you do that goes a long way towards finding happiness. For me, I think it is all about perspective. I don't love cooking dinner, but I do love caring for my family. If you can find the right perspective, you can tweak your attitude towards certain tasks so that they become more positive, if not enjoyable, parts of your day.
Very insightful, as always! I too wouldnt dare do the mundane if it could be avoided but needs must... Looking forward to taking the journey towards imbalance with you!
I love Nadine Stair's essay entitled, "If I Had My Life to Live Over Again..." I think it leads to the type of thinking you are doing. None of us really know what we'll do on our last day nor what we'd do if we had it all to do over again. But this one thing is sure...you have today and it is fleeting fast.
Oh definitely, balance. It's hard trying to balance everything but it's the key, I truly believe that. I have work I need to do and I have projects I want to do but I also don't want to miss out on my family. We all need to learn how to balance well.
I whole heartedly agree. In fact, those quotes along the lines of "live each day as if it was your last" and "life is not a dress rehearsal" kind of shit me to tears. Such tripe, really. A good show needs a bloody dress rehearsal and the whole point of "last days" is that you don't really know when they're coming. Balance and harmony in the every day is surely the key. x
You do what you have to do, to be able to do what you want to do.
And yet again you give voice to my thoughts too! Balance can be so hard to achieve but it's so important for me to feel like I'm somehow ticking all the boxes for myself. I saw an Oprah episode years ago where the guest said that we all have "cups" of things that make us happy, these cups being the types of things you listed above - family, friends, exercise etc and that sometimes we have to draw down on some cups more heavily than others but that the ideal is to keep them all as evenly drawn upon as possible. Clearly it's an analogy that's stuck with me and I think it's true. I can't enjoy the good stuff without the hygiene stuff being taken care of either.
Excellent post. Even on my dying day I'd like to think I was doing something that would make it a better tomorrow. I'd like to think that whatever wisdom I can impart on my children they will take it and make their generation better than mine. And they impart their wisdom on their children and so on so forth; kind of like a paying it forward concept, but generational.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
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