The Balance.

Where exactly is the balance?  Does it exist?  Or is it just some idea that we have made up along the way to make us feel like we have some sort of control?

You know what I'm talking about, don't you?  I must not be the only person who hears that phrase all the time.  "I just need to find the balance between eating healthy and enjoying my life."  "I just need to find the balance between working hard and having faith."  "I just need to find the balance between meeting my families' needs and meeting my own needs."  "I just need to find the balance between work and family."  Etc, etc, etc.

Hmmmm.

I honestly think that we need to figure out what, in our lives, needs our attention right now and then focus on that.  None of us could ever balance everything.  It just isn't humanly possible.  I think the drive to do so, even the notion that it is attainable, is stressing all of us out.  And stress is bad for us, really bad.

For example, there is a popular parenting idea that says quality time with your kids is more important than quantity time.  I say hooey.  You can't have one without the other.  It is nice to think that I could compartmentalize my kids that way and meet their needs when it is convenient for me, but I haven't found that that approach works very well.  They need when they need.

Now, before anyoe gets huffy, let me say that this is not meant to be a treatise on how all Moms should stay at home.  No, not at all.  I simply mean that if you do work, your kids needs are not always gonna jibe with your work schedule, and I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that.  I would actually be interested to hear how some of you working Moms pull it off.  If I had to guess, I would say, that there are other areas of your life that have to give because we just can't balance it all. 

Ah, now we've come full circle.

Here is my point.  We need to give ourselves permission to not balance it all.  We need to be able to give ourselves grace and recognize our own limitations.  We need to be able to look back on our day, every day, and see what was accomplished instead of what wasn't.  We need to treat our days like...well more like life, and less like a to-do list.