Balance seems like such an ideal, never a reality. Part of me envies those people who are great at balancing, multi-tasking, scheduling, forward-thinking, whatever you want to call it. Or in the least people who give the illusion of a balanced life. I think people who maintain day planners must be great at balancing. Sometimes those people piss me off; sometimes I want to be them. Mostly I want to be them. I operate more often than not on the principle of selective memory. If I have a task to complete and I remember to do it, it must have been important; otherwise it didn’t really matter in the first place. That’s my balancing act. Probably not very wise. I must also admit that part of me wants to throw a brick through the window of the person who suggests we need balance to have success. Really? Go tell bees to make honey while you’re at it. Hmmm...honey. On a side note, the honey in Columbia sold at the local Farmer's Market is much better than what I used to get in Texas. Just sayin'. And my in-laws used to be beekeepers until the Queen committed suicide. Seriously.
But I believe in balance and this is a good time in the semester to hear a chapter on Boice barraging me with reminders that I need to balance teacher and scholar duties, writing and waiting, writing and pre-writing, etc. Balance the small things and perhaps this will force the larger things into line? Maybe that’s what I’m getting out of all this balancing talk. This is the most unbalanced time of the semester, so, I will renew my commitment to have a more balanced beginning to next semester, I will enthusiastically balance teaching and other commitments and dedicate my students to being balanced in their own writing…and then forget it all by mid-March and give myself to the frenzy. So much for moderating the negative thinking.
"I must also admit that part of me wants to throw a brick through the window of the person who suggests we need balance to have success. Really? Go tell bees to make honey while you’re at it. Hmmm...honey. On a side note, the honey in Columbia sold at the local Farmer's Market is much better than what I used to get in Texas."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. On all accounts. It's really hard to hear someone else tell you to be balanced. Honestly, it's really hard to hear anyone tell you to do anything. Yes, balance is good, but it's not easy to hear it in the way Boice writes it.
And, honey is delicious. Did you know you could buy it in half gallon jugs? It's totally worth it.
I have a planner and I have never felt balanced. Maybe I should try looking at it to see what I should be doing today rather than just looking at it to write down what I will need to do next week.
ReplyDeleteMy dad just got bees. I will tell him to be on suicide alert.
Honey tastes like bee poo.
I like the idea that if you balance small things, the rest will follow. That sounds like something we can all manage, right? It sounds much less scary than trying to balance your life. Let me know if it works.