Balance is a word that is being tossed around lately. Emotional balance, financial balance, work-life balance. What is this balance and does anyone really achieve it?

I find my emotional life very off-balance these days. I can go through my days pretty well for a good part of the week and then BAM! Some little thing takes my breath away and I’m off balance AGAIN. It’s usually unexpected. A song, a card or note, a picture, a phrase that someone uses in conversation. Nothing big or brash. Small, quiet, quick. A knife turning in the heart and days of walking on a balance beam trying not to fall off.

I have to admit that there are longer intervals between episodes. I even believe that they may become a yearly event instead of weekly. Of course, this is still a great improvement over the daily battle for balance I was facing nine months ago.

Even when I feel that I’ve achieved a precarious emotional balance, there’s still the rest of my life that is in the mix. How do I balance work, home, kids, family and just stuff? At work they like to talk about work-life balance. While listending to a podcase recently the person was saying that the phrase should really be work-life integration. I like that MUCH better. It actually seems more attainable than balance.

Balance suggests that there is equality between your work and your life. Reality suggests otherwise simply because you spend so much of your time at work, thinking about work and getting ready for work. Integration suggests that they can each work around and within each other. So instead of coming home exhausted and trying to make my grocery list, I can start it during work at a time that I need a mental break. That mental break will also give me a different prespective on whatever I was working.

And by the way, someone where in all of this I’m told that I need to find time for myself.  Time to do things that I want to do.  You know, like blogging. I do this so well, that I’m doing this at 10:30PM when normally I like to be in bed, lights out ready to sleep, no later than 9:30PM. I’ll pay for it tomorrow when 6:00AM rolls around and I’m feeling groggy.

Maybe I’ll try for balance again in a couple of days. Tomorrow will be an experiment in integration.