Unrelenting Battle of Balance

Ghost Writer takes up where Marti left off -- a late night, a laptop, and some thoughts on work and life.

 

    Sitting in a wedding mass one weekend a number of years ago, I heard a priest delivering a most interesting homily in front of this bright and amazing couple declaring their love for each other.  In his message were words I will never forget.  "See all these people?  Your friends?  They don't want you to be married.  Even your family doesn't want you to be married, and rest assured, your job does not want you to be married.  More than anything your job does not want you to be married."  The priest went on to say how each facet of one's life competes for attention with another part, and as this young couple starts their life together, it was time to figure out how to balance all of these parts.

    While easily said, it is much harder to do it practice.  Balance is precarious.  Just ask the Flying Wendellas.  They are the best at it anyone ever has been, and yes, people still die.  And ask marriage counselors.  They are the best at teaching it anyone has ever seen, and yes, marriages still die.

    Balance is a zero sum game.  Just like time.  Just like money. You've only got so much to go around, so when I'm in hotels and on the road, I work like a freakshow.  This week a prime example -- 60+ hours going into midnight Thursday night.  However, no one was around to know it.  I was cool with it.  This weekend I have shimmied the "must do" down to 3 hours tomorrow morning.  After that, I balance back. 

    Balance by its nature requires a plan.  The Wendellas have poles and special shoes and tons of training.  Who among us has had balance training?  Real balance training -- not just Franklin-Covey plan the big rocks training?  Very few if any of us.  Probably most of us need a dedicated personal coach to figure out our roadblocks to balance.  All I know is, in Marti's post from earlier this month, it's choices, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt my job does not want me to have friends, a family, or a partner.  Period.  It is the chaos that will expand like a giant black hole and take over my life left to its own devices.  It is a seductive partner, sort of like that crazy chic from "Fatal Attraction" switching on the light on and off while she plots to boil the bunny,  It rewards us, or shows a lure of a potential reward for paying attention to her.  It punishes us, or threatens punishment at every corner, if we even vaguely think of ignoring her.

    This is the unrelenting battle of balance we have before us.  No one is going to protect a person from his/her desires to achieve, but that person.  No one is going to make the choices required to create balance but that person.  It stinks, though.  It's like being overweight, which I am, and knowing I need to eat better and eat less and yet I don't.  I know I need balance, and yet at times I'm lousy at it.

    Some would say any failure at any thing in life stems from fear.  So what can I say?  I wake up every day the protagonist in the unrelenting battle of balance with my primary nemises -- The Fatal Attraction with my job.