Do we need to be jugglers rather than tightrope artists?

We’ve published many articles on this blog about work/life balance, so it’s interesting to see a rather different idea being suggested by Joan Borysenko on The Huffington Post (”Busting The Balance Myth“).

Her main point is that balance isn’t always possible. There are too many things to be done. Maybe there is no way to organize your time so that everything stays ‘in balance’. Trying to do so may be chasing an unattainable idea and creating a problem that isn’t really there. Ms. Borysenko writes:

Juggling requires maintaining your center. The idea is to stop managing life so much, and begin managing yourself. Long ago I learned that it’s better to prepare the speaker than the speech, particularly when I’m well acquainted with the subject matter. If I meticulously outline a lecture, rehearsing the points as I get ready to begin, I’m likely to lose my center. But if I chat with the audience first, put myself at ease, or take a few minutes for some deep breathing, the talk always goes more smoothly.

It’s an appealing idea. It’s easy to over-manage your life, reducing it to a series of constantly re-prioritized to-do lists. Still, even juggling requires some balance. If the most expert juggler tries to keep too many balls in the air at one time, he or she is going to fail.

From where I stand, ‘juggling’ is an essential part of building a more balanced life, not an alternative. We all have to juggle demands; and balance is a dynamic process, not a static one that you ‘achieve’ once and for all.

Still, it’s worth remembering that balance is an internal state — finding a point where you can ’stand’ steadily and firmly, internally speaking, and deal with whatever life brings you. It’s not an external process of ordering requirements, whether on paper or the computer.

Manage yourself first, then turn to managing what proportion you can of the demands that fall on you.

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