The never-ending search for "balance"

For many a decade, those of us who find work intruding on our personal lives (or vice versa) have been told to seek "BALANCE." You've got to find the right balance, they say, as if -- like tapping the beam weights on the scale at the doctor's office -- one could locate the precise equilibrium point between work and life by shifting a little something from one side to the other.

Well that's a load of crap if you ask me.

Life is busy. We have work. We have families and friends. We have hobbies. We have stuff we want to do. When you're challenging yourself and are engaged on multiple fronts, balance is an illusion. There simply aren't enough hours in the day for balance if one takes balance to mean "doing all the stuff you want to do."

Fundamentally you have to make a choice:

Do I want to continue doing all this stuff? Is there something I can/want to stop doing?

Hm... let's see. I have a family, a job, and one "hobby."

I like my family. Can't scratch them out of the picture.

I like my job. It pays me money. Money is useful. Not really prepared to quit.

My hobby's not bad either :-) Besides, all work and no play makes JD a dull boy.

So. Now what? All I need to do is divide up my time, right? Just figure out the right proportions and that's it -- eternal bliss through "balance." I mean, it's not like work will ever get busy or something won't come up out of the blue or my son won't get sick or I'll never just want to say "the hell with this" and take the afternoon off.

Real balance is hard work. Real balance means you have to plan and prepare and sometimes just react to whatever work and life throw at you content in the knowledge that you'll do your best and that sometimes, despite your best efforts, shit just isn't going to get done. It's about making short-term and long-term decisions, about doing what's right and occasionally what's necessary, about accountability and responsibility and integrity and about making choices that don't always have clearcut answers.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you mediocrity.