Or balance. Or the lack thereof – which is really what I’m more qualified to write/talk about. I’ve got much more experience with the latter than the former.
I’ve been called things like “dedicated” or “focused” or ”intense” in reference to things that I do. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy - “…whatever you do, do well” and “never quit” are things that’ve been drummed into my head since an early age. Unfortunately, I took these and ran with them without looking watching where I was going. I became an all-or-nothing, black-and-white kind of guy. Things either related to or were part of my work or pastime or they weren’t or didn’t, and thus were unworthy of consideration. I was too consumed with these thoughts to hear “all things in moderation”.
Thus, my instinct has been to do one thing to the exclusion of all others – work, play, read, it doesn’t matter, when I do something, I do it all the way and it consumes me. I found out the hard way that this isn’t a very healthy way to live. I’ve also found out the hard way that balance is something that happens, not something I can necessarily achieve. It’s a byproduct of moderation and right living, not something I can strive for.
To a certain extent though, I can strive for moderation. This means putting the book down when it’s time to go to bed, no matter how much I want to see what happens next. This means walking out of the office at the end of the day without a stack of papers under my arm to work on when I get home. This means only climbing one mountain on the weekends (in the winter). And it means not going to yoga seven days a week. Putting things down, walking away, and taking it easy are not simple things for me: it takes work and energy (and yes, a bit of pain) for me to do what is right and moderate.
It’s ok for me to give my all to what I’m doing, in fact, that’s great, but I’ve had to learn when to stop.
Case-in-point: reading fiction. I love to read. I love reading all kinds of fiction, sci-fi and fantasy novels are a wonderful escape for me. But when I find myself taking a bit longer at lunch to read a few more pages, cancelling appointments with friends so that I have more time to read, or generally trying to figure out how I can re-work my schedule so that I can have more “me” time to read, I know I’m in trouble.
So what do I do to avoid this? Reading is an integral part of my life – it does for me what tv does for most people (when done in moderation) – it allows my conscious mind to take a break, it lets something else besides my own will spin the wheels in my head for a while. Short answer: I read non-fiction. Non-fiction is still reading, but it’s a bit more like studying for me. It’s also a lot easier to put down when luch is over or it’s time to meet up with a buddy.
Conversely, I’m finding, there are times when I have to switch back to fiction, to reading for escape. Work is starting to get busy again, and I have a bunch of things going on in my personal life (this blog among them) that require sustained concentration and exertion of my will. I can see myself getting burned out trying to “get one more thing done” and squeeze one more hour out of the day. Consequently, I’ve put down my studies of Zen Buddhism, Stock Analysis, and Microsoft Excel for a bit, in favor of a bit of fantasy novel escape reading. I’ll still spend time learning CSS and the intricacies of WordPress and my cPanel, but I can’t let these things consume me.
It’s kind of hard; there are plenty of things I want to do to get this blog “just right”, but in order to remain emotionally balanced and not spend all my time on these things to the exclusion of all others, I have to go through the little bit of pain that I feel when I shut my computer down and give my brain a break. Besides, the more I do these things in moderation, the more things I can do, and the more I’ll eventually accomplish. And the more efficient I’ll be, even though it doesn’t seem the case when there are “just a few things I can still get done” before bed.
