What’s Important—Finding Balance in a Finite Life
One of life’s most important but most challenging aspects is achieving a state of balance. We are all eventually faced with a broad range of demands, passions, and responsibilities to which we cannot devote sufficient time or energy. We ultimately have to choose those activities that we either need or must spend more time with at the expense of others. You might base this on requirements or perceived requirements. You might disregard your responsibilities and focus on what you love, but regardless, at some point, you will have to choose what you do with your time.
Feeling overwhelmed
In a typical life, it doesn’t take long to start to feel overwhelmed. When we were children, we wanted to play but had to do our homework and chores. This simple dichotomy becomes more and more complex as we age, as we add organized sports, music lessons, and jobs to the list of demands, and as school work increases and becomes more difficult. As we enter adulthood, we are very familiar with feeling overwhelmed but not necessarily aware of solutions other than responding to the loudest voices and fighting the biggest fires.
Setting priorities
Taking an intentional approach to this problem can help. It allows you to focus on what is essential and jettison what does not contribute to your life or your primary concerns. Determining what is a priority in your life is important, but it can be challenging. Setting priorities is nothing more complicated than deciding what is most important, but too many of us take a knee-jerk approach to make those judgments.
Setting priorities has to be intentional. You must base your decisions about your priorities on your goals, what makes you happy, what you’re passionate about, and your commitments and responsibilities. It helps to be specific and list these elements in your life and their importance. It may take some brainstorming and some soul-searching. It may also take some difficult decisions, but it is possible to come to a list of priorities that aligns with goals and values and provides you with the most meaning.
A lifetime, not a week
This process will likely result in your putting off activities that are very important to you. But it’s vital to take the long view. If something is a priority but does not reach high enough on the list to be feasible, that doesn’t mean you’re removing it from your life. It may only mean that you’re putting it off to another time. Stay open-minded to the possibilities of what you want to do, but be sure to include time in the mix. Just because you’re not doing something this week, this month, or this year doesn’t mean you’re giving up on it. However, being open-minded to the possibility that it may never become a high enough priority is also something to consider.
I am fortunate to have a lot of interests and passions. My recent focus has been on my blog, music, poetry, and training development. It has also included all the supporting activities accompanying these elements, such as posting/releasing the content, getting it in front of people (social media and marketing), and interacting with those with thoughts and ideas about it. These activities take up all of my time and could take up much more if I allowed it to.
I’m also interested in writing on topics besides my blog and have several book ideas. Additionally, I love wood sculpting and painting. I have tried to fit all of these activities into my life, but there was nowhere near enough time, and I spread myself too thin, which resulted in all of them suffering. I have had to delay my work on additional books and my artwork. It was a tough decision, but in hindsight, the right one.
There is a whole world of possibilities, and there will always be more you might do than you need more space to do. It is a wonderful problem to have.
Finding balance means finding those activities that best align with your essential self and devoting yourself to them with all your heart and soul while staying open-minded to future possibilities and passions.
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Artwork Natasha7409
