The end of the year always tests my balance between personal and professional priorities. Always, I want to be cheery, enjoy simple moments of holiday songs and lovely lights in the streets. Drink warm spicy mulled Gluwein and walk through a Christmas market. We are "supposed" to laugh and be merry. Relax at parties. Smile a lot and feel grateful.
Every year at about this time, I say I will do this better.
But then there are those clients trying to spend their budgets or use what's left to get a start on the next year. And all of that paperwork to be finished early for year-end financial closing and/or tax considerations. And gifts to buy. And cards to send. And people to remember. And houses to clean before the guests arrive.
Somehow, it all adds up to a bit of stress, don't you think? Work-life balance year-end crunch time!
I realize more and more that the term "work-life balance" itself is nuts, really. I mean first, why do we put "work" in front of "life?" Already we reinforce the problem. And then "balance?" How can we create balance when someone or life itself is always throwing something on one side of the scale or the other? Life with that analogy is more of a teeter-totter. Not appealing! (Especially as I remember how my brothers thought the purpose of a teeter-totter was a game to throw me or whoever else was on the other side off...)
Why can't we just say that living is the goal? Try to find the time to do the things we care about as we see life today. Something always won't get done. By next year, we'll have more input and may see our priorities differently anyway. The goal isn't to achieve some ideal balance - to keep it all perfectly in order, aligned and equal. The older I get, the more I see the goal as to live in chaos and survive it with a positive spirit.
Continuing the childhood analogy, I prefer to think of the whole playground, which included the teeter-totter, and the school beside it: sometimes you could swing, spin, throw, kick, run, laugh, fall, cry, get up, go again. Or just sit on the side and watch. It changed with the seasons and my mood.
No one told us to make a playground plan did they? "Set priorities and be sure you spend enough time on each piece of equipment or game." We spent more time on the things that were enjoyable - often the things we were good at and did with our friends. If we had made a plan, would it have worked? What would we have lost, overlooked, not learned?
Who knows...it was then and still is a bit of chaos sometimes stressful, sometimes fun. Life, now with work included.
I hope I can just this one holiday season get out on the playground and not try to play on every piece of equipment in 30 days or less! :-)
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