Elusive Balance

So this week I've been trying to function with my New-and-Improved Schedule, wherein I have attempted to fit in every last item that I am supposed to do for homeschooling, housekeeping, business running, mothering, wife-ing, and Personal Burnout Shield. I made up this schedule over the weekend, since I felt too many things were falling through the cracks. Once it was made I spent the remainder of the weekend feeling like I was about to cry because I hate having every 15 minute increment of my life accounted for an owed to somebody or something. (sigh)

So, there hasn't been much time for blogging. But overall it hasn't been terrible. Mainly it just that I'm a free spirit sort, and so I don't like having so many important things to do that my life has to be so planned out in order to accomodate all of it. I have told myself that when the day comes that I am an empty nester or in some situation where I am alone, I am not going to cry over what I do not have. I will try to focus on what I can do that I haven't been able to before.

It seems to me that so often the human condition is to crave what we cannot have. Kids want to be teens and get their driver's license. College kids can't wait to get their first job and their own apartment. The single person may wish to be married. The childless may wish for children. The married may think of their single days. Parents may dream of the days when they did not have so much responsibility upon them. Empty nesters may cry "where did all the years go?" I try to focus on what I do have in life, and for the most part I think I do a good job of it. But, I guess any station in life can become tiring or need a boost.

This line of thinking brought me to the popular theme of Balance. In my own social circles, especially church contacts, striving for a balanced life seems to be a very important goal. While I was considering this, and what seems to be the impossibility of it, I had some very different thoughts come to mind.

Is a balanced life what we think it is? I find that people around me seem to feel that their life would ideally be balanced in the present all the time. To achieve this it would mean that
their house is always orderly
their children are always orderly, clean, free from unattractive stages or habits
they have anticipated parenting issues ahead of time and have a plan waiting to be used
marriage is never neglected
there is always time to carefully keep all the plates spinning: work, marriage, kids, church, friendships, hobbies/interests/money and so forth

and so far, although I hear a lot of this talk, I don't see that it's really possible, because just like my schedule, it seems that in order to achieve all of this balance, you have to sacrifice spontanaeity, creativity, and flexibility to a greater or lesser degree. At the very least, it seems to me that a very balanced present can only come when one is very mindful of balance.....which seems kind of out-of-balance to me. ;)

In our Parental Guidance required group this subject came up, and I made a comment that was the seed of what I am thinking about today. In the talk about balance, I pointed out that balance is often not possible in the moment. When you have a newborn baby, life is out of balance because that new baby and post partum mother need to rise to the priority list for rest, relaxation, feeding, nurture, and so forth. So, the husband may do more around the house than usual, or their meals may not be up to their ususal standards. There is no sex, there is little sleep. It is not balanced! But over the course of a life....it does eventually balance out.

I have seen quite a few parents seem to fear life getting out of balance so much that they seem unable to live in the moment with their children. I've never been able to appreciate that approach.

Is balance worth the sacrifice that it takes?

Is our drive to achieve balance in our life reflecting an unrealistic ideal?

What can we learn about balance from nature, God, and traditions?

The Bible tells us that we can learn about God from nature. We have 4 seasons that I do not consider to be balanced. We have the extremes of summer and winter, and transitional times of spring and fall. We have agricultural rhythms of planting, tending, harvest and rest. Not balanced within each part, but balanced overall.

Our weather is full of extremes of heat, drought, winds, rains, tornadoes, and other natural disasters. It isn't balanced on a day-to-day basis, is it?

I was thinking of my friend Alana who is an Orthodox Christian, and about how her church practices the extremes and rhythms of the early church calendar. (I know I'll probably say this a little bit wrong, Alana. I hope you will comment. I would love to know how you think about balance within the context of church traditions.) Within these traditional practices we see great extremes of fasting and feasting, and all of the transitional times in between as hearts are prepared for the next coming extreme. Individual extremes--overall balance.

So are we chasing an impossible dream when we expect ourselves to keep all the plates spinning? Now, I'm not talking about neglecting important responsibilities here. I know that to some extent we do have a lot of plates to spin. But, have we made a false idol of our goal to be balanced? Have we gotten it wrong? Have we stopped seeing our life as an overall journey that will reflect extreme valleys and mountains, with a lot of flat land and gently rolling hills in between?

Also, is my love of extremes a bad thing? I would greatly enjoy the ability to sometimes read all day long or late into the night, sometimes sleep in very late, watch a bunch of movies all in one weekend, do a lot of really fun activities with my kids in one big burst, pack a bunch of thrilling activities into a weekend getaway with my husband, do a whole big burst of house cleaning or decorating, go on a wild binge to help with a community food bank or to help at my child's school? If a person seems to thrive on bursts of extreme behavior, might we be able to consider that this is a tendency worthy of respect, and able to be put to worthy use within one's life?

Of course, then we're back to the original problem, which is: With my love of extremes, how am I going to keep all these plates spinning?!

ugh. Where did I put that stinkin' schedule?