The Difference
Over the last couple of years I have been evaluating my life, trying to make improvements, following through on wishes and commitments, and searching for a sense of ultimate peace about how I live. One of the topics that I’ve really explored over the course of the last three years is the idea of ‘balance’. At the time, it seemed like an elusive goal that surely someone like me could never achieve. However, over time, and with the help and advice of others, I felt as if last year I finally began to see some balance emerge on the scene in my life. Wow. What a relief, I thought. For me, 2006 really felt like a year of ‘balance’.
Then why, I ask myself, did the year go by and leave me with such a sense of ‘blur’, of slight discontent, of ‘still not really there yet’? I thought I had licked this ‘balance’ thing. After all, more areas of my life were getting attention – the spiritual, the physical, the emotional, the familial, etc. Why was it that I was still feeling all out of whack?
While preparing for a recent coaching session, a light went on. I was reviewing my personal values and priorities for 2007 in an attempt to set some goals for the year. I noticed a theme emerging as I reviewed my personal values. Stability. I wanted to feel emotionally stable. I wanted to stabilize my weight. I wanted my work life to reach new heights of stable-hood… I wrote in big letters across my goal-setting sheet: LET’S MAKE 2007 THE YEAR OF STABILITY.
A breakthrough? Maybe. As I reflected further, I began to think that this need for stability was just more of the same desire for balance in my life. Maybe I had not actually achieved balance. Because surely, balance and stability must be the same, right? Well, maybe not. In fact, as I probe the recesses of my mind even more, I am beginning to think that actually ‘balance’ and ‘stability’ are two entirely different things altogether.
To me, balance means having a little bit of everything in your life. Adding on until we can focus on every area of life, making sure that nothing is left out or neglected. Certainly, nothing ‘important’ is forgotten. Oftentimes this means taking on a lot of additional activities to foster the needs in the multi-dimensioned parts of our life. Adding an hour at the gym to work on the physical; adding two additional coffee meetings every week to improve the social, etc.
The obvious problems, however, begin with the fact that sometimes all the adding in an effort to create the balanced life can result in overload. There are many times when adding something new can cause everything else to be imbalanced. Imagine for a moment the times when you have too many things to bring in from the car. You have groceries. You have children’s school bags. You have empty diet coke cans. You have that extra blanket you brought to the picnic at the park. You have the trash bag. Of course it is ideal to make only one trip… or at least as few trips as possible. So you start loading up, tucking one bag here, one bag there, cutting off the circulation in your fingers, balancing things piled high right in front of your face so you have to reach the front door by Braille. Then, however, disaster strikes. Just as you have everything balanced so well, the dog runs out the door and jumps on your legs. Or the kids throw a Frisbee at you. Or your cell phone starts to ring. Ka-Boom!! Bags go crashing to the ground. Cans are flying everywhere. You sigh in disbelief and wonder why you didn’t just take two trips in the first place.
The point? Balance in life only works to a certain extent. There will be a ‘tipping point’ (to borrow some recent jargon) when adding something new will throw everything else out of whack. Therefore, we are constantly straining, making extreme effort to keep everything in check. Who wants that kind of a lifestyle?
What happens when crisis comes along? Well, in the world of balance we may never know because balance means everything is calm only when there is no crisis. Imagine the episodes of “World’s Most Amazing Videos” where they show a tightrope walker trying to walk across the thin wire spanning between two skyscrapers. They walk carefully in with that long balancing rod in their hands, slowly making progress across the line. Then, however, the wind kicks up or the reflection from the sun blinds their eyes. Their balance is lost and onlookers gasp in horror as the tightrope walker fights to stay alive. The same is true of our lives. If we strive only for balance, then it is likely we may find it difficult to fit something extra in to cope with crisis. We manage to get along just fine when we are in control and know what is coming next. However, throw in something unexpected, and all the balls we’ve been so carefully juggling start to drop.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, it seems to me that attaining balance in life is based on our own self-foundation. A foundation of our own strength, our own effort, our own knowledge and know-how. Maybe this is why so many of us struggle for true ‘balance’ in life! It really is not possible on our own. Our foundation is self. And we all know that self is not sufficient. (Can you say a-ha moment? I think so.) The foundation must go deeper. I’m beginning to believe that balance, my friends is not the answer.
Thus, I’m making 2007 the year of ‘stability’. Stability seems quite different to me. Stability means having a little bit of everything in your life – but in the right proportions. Finding the right proportions requires evaluating our values and priorities and reorganizing our time and talents on a regular basis (every year? every six months?) to give adequate focus to only the issues which require the attention during that season of life. Maybe our career is going well, we’re taking lots of vacations, and we are really operating professionally in the areas of our personal strengths and passions. Great! Keep at it. However, maybe our family life is falling apart or we’ve gained a lot of weight. Stability means extra effort on the family or investigating ways to reorganize our professional time to allow for the increased effort required in the areas of struggle. We must be careful not to add on without taking that time from some other area. Don’t just add on … re-organize!
Stability means evaluating and reorganizing in such a way that all that is important is remembered and given the appropriate amount of attention… and those that do not meet our carefully composed criteria get farmed out to someone with better strengths / stronger passions to meet those needs. I recently went through the process of choosing a school for my son. There were three or four options, one of which was homeschooling. Can I do homeschooling? Sure. Do I believe it has value? Absolutely. Would homeschooling help me to maintain stability in the home? Well, I don’t think so. I kept reflecting back to the fact that it is not my passion. It is not my strength. However, educating children is the strength and passion of some very good schools in our area. Therefore, to maintain stability (and sanity!) I opted for an outside school. Evaluate. Reorganize. Delegate.
What about in the midst of crisis? Stability means everything is calm even in the midst of crisis. How did that old Sunday School song go? “The wise man builds his house upon the rock…” Stability recognizes the need for a solid foundation that exists outside of oneself. That may be God, personal values, etc. But it must be something that is not dependent upon the emotional and exhausted being who must constantly strain to keep everything in balance. With this solid foundation in place, an encouraging calm comes during crisis because we have more than ourselves upon which to rely. Adding something new can be taken in stride because the rest of life is being lived in the right proportion and in (mostly) complete control. A life of stability takes care of itself. With a little bit of our own personal effort, it is self-maintaining. It’s that quiet dishwasher in the background that magically produces clean dishes after an hour. It’s the breadmaker that fills the house with the scent of freshly baked carbs waiting to be eaten after a long hard day at the office with a delicious spaghetti dinner. Stability, once achieved, maintains itself.
Stability. The better, more achievable choice. I’m going to focus on it in 2007. How exactly? Well, I’m not quite sure. I do know, though, that it will require regular self-evaluation and lots of thought… with action to follow up that thought, and accountability. Yes, a lot of work. But I think in the end it will be worth it. My emotions will be more under control. I will ‘feel’ better about things because life really is better. Yes, I think that’s what I want. Stability in 2007.
~lk
Then why, I ask myself, did the year go by and leave me with such a sense of ‘blur’, of slight discontent, of ‘still not really there yet’? I thought I had licked this ‘balance’ thing. After all, more areas of my life were getting attention – the spiritual, the physical, the emotional, the familial, etc. Why was it that I was still feeling all out of whack?
While preparing for a recent coaching session, a light went on. I was reviewing my personal values and priorities for 2007 in an attempt to set some goals for the year. I noticed a theme emerging as I reviewed my personal values. Stability. I wanted to feel emotionally stable. I wanted to stabilize my weight. I wanted my work life to reach new heights of stable-hood… I wrote in big letters across my goal-setting sheet: LET’S MAKE 2007 THE YEAR OF STABILITY.
A breakthrough? Maybe. As I reflected further, I began to think that this need for stability was just more of the same desire for balance in my life. Maybe I had not actually achieved balance. Because surely, balance and stability must be the same, right? Well, maybe not. In fact, as I probe the recesses of my mind even more, I am beginning to think that actually ‘balance’ and ‘stability’ are two entirely different things altogether.
To me, balance means having a little bit of everything in your life. Adding on until we can focus on every area of life, making sure that nothing is left out or neglected. Certainly, nothing ‘important’ is forgotten. Oftentimes this means taking on a lot of additional activities to foster the needs in the multi-dimensioned parts of our life. Adding an hour at the gym to work on the physical; adding two additional coffee meetings every week to improve the social, etc.
The obvious problems, however, begin with the fact that sometimes all the adding in an effort to create the balanced life can result in overload. There are many times when adding something new can cause everything else to be imbalanced. Imagine for a moment the times when you have too many things to bring in from the car. You have groceries. You have children’s school bags. You have empty diet coke cans. You have that extra blanket you brought to the picnic at the park. You have the trash bag. Of course it is ideal to make only one trip… or at least as few trips as possible. So you start loading up, tucking one bag here, one bag there, cutting off the circulation in your fingers, balancing things piled high right in front of your face so you have to reach the front door by Braille. Then, however, disaster strikes. Just as you have everything balanced so well, the dog runs out the door and jumps on your legs. Or the kids throw a Frisbee at you. Or your cell phone starts to ring. Ka-Boom!! Bags go crashing to the ground. Cans are flying everywhere. You sigh in disbelief and wonder why you didn’t just take two trips in the first place.
The point? Balance in life only works to a certain extent. There will be a ‘tipping point’ (to borrow some recent jargon) when adding something new will throw everything else out of whack. Therefore, we are constantly straining, making extreme effort to keep everything in check. Who wants that kind of a lifestyle?
What happens when crisis comes along? Well, in the world of balance we may never know because balance means everything is calm only when there is no crisis. Imagine the episodes of “World’s Most Amazing Videos” where they show a tightrope walker trying to walk across the thin wire spanning between two skyscrapers. They walk carefully in with that long balancing rod in their hands, slowly making progress across the line. Then, however, the wind kicks up or the reflection from the sun blinds their eyes. Their balance is lost and onlookers gasp in horror as the tightrope walker fights to stay alive. The same is true of our lives. If we strive only for balance, then it is likely we may find it difficult to fit something extra in to cope with crisis. We manage to get along just fine when we are in control and know what is coming next. However, throw in something unexpected, and all the balls we’ve been so carefully juggling start to drop.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, it seems to me that attaining balance in life is based on our own self-foundation. A foundation of our own strength, our own effort, our own knowledge and know-how. Maybe this is why so many of us struggle for true ‘balance’ in life! It really is not possible on our own. Our foundation is self. And we all know that self is not sufficient. (Can you say a-ha moment? I think so.) The foundation must go deeper. I’m beginning to believe that balance, my friends is not the answer.
Thus, I’m making 2007 the year of ‘stability’. Stability seems quite different to me. Stability means having a little bit of everything in your life – but in the right proportions. Finding the right proportions requires evaluating our values and priorities and reorganizing our time and talents on a regular basis (every year? every six months?) to give adequate focus to only the issues which require the attention during that season of life. Maybe our career is going well, we’re taking lots of vacations, and we are really operating professionally in the areas of our personal strengths and passions. Great! Keep at it. However, maybe our family life is falling apart or we’ve gained a lot of weight. Stability means extra effort on the family or investigating ways to reorganize our professional time to allow for the increased effort required in the areas of struggle. We must be careful not to add on without taking that time from some other area. Don’t just add on … re-organize!
Stability means evaluating and reorganizing in such a way that all that is important is remembered and given the appropriate amount of attention… and those that do not meet our carefully composed criteria get farmed out to someone with better strengths / stronger passions to meet those needs. I recently went through the process of choosing a school for my son. There were three or four options, one of which was homeschooling. Can I do homeschooling? Sure. Do I believe it has value? Absolutely. Would homeschooling help me to maintain stability in the home? Well, I don’t think so. I kept reflecting back to the fact that it is not my passion. It is not my strength. However, educating children is the strength and passion of some very good schools in our area. Therefore, to maintain stability (and sanity!) I opted for an outside school. Evaluate. Reorganize. Delegate.
What about in the midst of crisis? Stability means everything is calm even in the midst of crisis. How did that old Sunday School song go? “The wise man builds his house upon the rock…” Stability recognizes the need for a solid foundation that exists outside of oneself. That may be God, personal values, etc. But it must be something that is not dependent upon the emotional and exhausted being who must constantly strain to keep everything in balance. With this solid foundation in place, an encouraging calm comes during crisis because we have more than ourselves upon which to rely. Adding something new can be taken in stride because the rest of life is being lived in the right proportion and in (mostly) complete control. A life of stability takes care of itself. With a little bit of our own personal effort, it is self-maintaining. It’s that quiet dishwasher in the background that magically produces clean dishes after an hour. It’s the breadmaker that fills the house with the scent of freshly baked carbs waiting to be eaten after a long hard day at the office with a delicious spaghetti dinner. Stability, once achieved, maintains itself.
Stability. The better, more achievable choice. I’m going to focus on it in 2007. How exactly? Well, I’m not quite sure. I do know, though, that it will require regular self-evaluation and lots of thought… with action to follow up that thought, and accountability. Yes, a lot of work. But I think in the end it will be worth it. My emotions will be more under control. I will ‘feel’ better about things because life really is better. Yes, I think that’s what I want. Stability in 2007.
~lk
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