Balance

One time I was shaving in the shower. Somehow while I was rubbing my face to see if I missed a spot, I cut the top of my ear with the razor. The first indication of my mishap was seeing the blood on my hand. Seeing the blood caused a slight panic which coincided with getting soap in my eye. I hurriedly reached past the shower curtain for my towel. At this point I slipped, grabbed the shower curtain, pulled the shower curtain down, and fell out of the bath tub and on to the cold tile floor. There I was cold, bruised, bleeding, and eyes stinging, laying on the bathroom floor with a shower curtain on top of me. I should have had better balance.

Balance is essential to leading a whole and happy life. To achieve balance, the first step could be to divide your life into appropriate categories. You could do mind, body, and spirit. You could divide by roles you play such as employee, student, father, son, husband, ballet dancer, etc... You could also divide up by areas of responsibility that are a little more general like, work, school, family, friends, church. Think of as many categories as you need and if you ever feel unbalanced in an area not on the list, add it.

Next, you need to make sure you are dedicating the appropriate time and energy into each of these categories. Unfortunately you can't just divide up your hours awake into equal segments. Balance means making progress in each area and not necessarily devoting equal amounts or time.

The whole point of this is that you don't want to be that guy who has an amazing job and has never met a promotion he couldn't get, but has neglected his family life to the point of extinction. You don't want to be that student who has amazing grades and graduates with a stellar transcript, but has neglected his social skills to the point of never doing well in an interview. You don't want to be that guy who sure is clean shaven, but walks with a limp and has a band aid on his ear.