We all mostly have a same destination but are travelling through different means. Our purposes of travelling also are different even if we choose the same routes other have chosen. Basically we all see life in a bit different way but mostly(not always though) want the same thing. Family, Career, Money, Power, Health, WorldTour, and if time allows some other crazy stuff we are dreaming about since childhood.
When we achieve all these things, or say even in order to achieve these things, we find ourselves juggling between many things. There comes a thing called a “Balance” which leaders from many generations are preaching about. I wouldn’t like to call it a “Life balancing” or “Work-Life -Balance”. Is life really about balancing? Does 1+1 always make 2? I have been given two 1s and I might want to use a different operator than plus, or even better don’t want to use any. I might just want to place them side by side or I might don’t want to do anything with the given numbers as they don’t sound interesting or useful at all based on my knowledge or experiences.
Going purely by numbers, putting 25% efforts in each important area of my life would allow me to touch at max four areas, and may be five if I change to 20%. So depending on the no. of things/areas I find important in my life, I have to either increase or decrease the efforts. But does this really create a balanced life for me. Does playing a 100% balanced act, really make a valuable life one has imagined for? Who plans his/her sleep from childhood days that I am going to sleep this much time? But the fact is we actually spend a quite amount of our life years sleeping. We actually don’t do anything while in sleep, but still the quality of sleep we get affects our day.
I had been asked a question at university for the post of a Research fellow which might make a sense here: “Can we call a P-type material a positively charged or an N-type material a negatively charged?
Of course I answered in No [and got selected, but really Yes would have saved me], as overall the matter would be electrically neutral. So despite N-type material having electrons as majority carriers it does not make it the negatively charged material. See how it balances itself and still servers it’s purpose.
Though definition of Life would vary from person to person, it’s not about balancing and trying to achieve 100% by distributing it equally in all areas. It would be more about giving and living 100% at the given point of time. Most of the time it’s a ladder of Trade-Offs, where at each step you decide what is important to you and what serves your purpose. What is your priority? It’s more about making choices consciously or purposefully.
When you work till late, you have made a choice yourselves, calculating the risk factors involved. Even if you have been asked to work till late, you have still made a choice of listening to and following the order of that person. So whether to work late or not is a conscious choice which would have it’s own consequences. Like they say you are free to choose but are not free from it’s consequences. So when you find yourselves not getting enough sleep you think you have lost a work-life balance, but actually it’s your choices and priorities you have chosen to take care of.
So it’s our choices which would ultimately make a valuable life as we want it to be. We need to constantly calculate and set what is important to us and what is our priority. This would help us making choices at each stage and would prepare us to deal with trade-offs. But one thing is certain that when you start to making choices consciously, you would own it’s consequences, you would not feel surprised, and most importantly you would never regret your choices even if you fail in that area. Because that was exactly the thing you wanted at that point of time. You will not blame on anyone even not to yourself.
If you want to give 99% of your life to one thing and 1% to other stuff, do so, but do it deliberately such that you own your choice and believe it full heartedly. Choice could go wrong, but here note that it does not make you wrong. You can make a wrong choice but remember that choosing is never wrong. It’s a basic fundamental thing like food to survive.
So forget balance and make choices. Forget numbers and grab moments. Freedom, Peace, Happiness are all by products of this and most importantly it saves you from a regretfully life
Happy Choosing