What is balance? Depending on its context, balance can take on a couple interesting faces:
a weighing scale
the presentation of multiple viewpoints (See Also Neutrality).
a desirable point between two or more opposite forces.
a device to measure the mass of an object.
When you look at balance as a measure in life, it is easy to get swept away in a stream of thoughts. Is balance life’s measuring scale? Is it the midpoint between “success” and “failure?” And the most mysterious, how do I achieve this magical neutrality?
I often struggle with this sense of balance and generally come to the same conclusion. My scale tends to tip heavily to the business side with significantly smaller portions of my time dedicated to “personal” time. Whether wrong or right, this just tends to be how I net out. Several factors contribute to my choice of allocating my time this way…yes we choose our balance and the way we allocate our time, after all, everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.
#1 – Drive of an Entrepreneur – It is very hard for me to “turn it off” – Knowing what my lifelong goals consist of, I constantly see opportunities in from of me and choose to capitalize on as many of them as possible as they are presented. This leads to times when I am forced to segment a portion of my “personal” free time to the mongrel of entrepreneurship! I’m ok with that!.....at least for now
#2 – Pay now or Pay Later – relates to #1 and perhaps where my true “balance” issues enter – My justification for ridiculously working my ass off now is to reap its rewards sooner and “retire” early. By retire I do in fact mean taking a less active role in terms of travel and workload. I am one of those people who would go crazy sitting around all day or driving an RV across the country. That being said, I do sometimes dream of playing golf everyday ☺ My struggle is to know this limit. It is easy for me to see the downfall of not capitalizing on business opportunity at a young age, but I do have to remind myself of the pitfalls that result from not enjoying the personal side of life at a young age as well.
#3 – Nature of the Beast – As long as I can remember I have always been a “busy” person. In HS, I was involved heavily in music and sports, and in college I had work, school and playing music. Along with those things, I have always had close relationships with my friends and family. When I moved to PA for my career and to essentially help build a company, all of a sudden my focus that was once spread over many verticals became focused. I think this made it very easy to become extremely intense with work and focusing my time and effort into those aspects of my life.
#4 – Long-term Provisions – My life goals have always included being able to provide for my family in a comfortable fashion. Though financial stability leads to a conversation of its own, my thoughts tend to fall to the side of - not having to wonder where the net bill is coming from, takes a lot of stress out of a relationship! I do realize money does not solve all problems and creates many of its own, it is important for me to know I can be a provider and offer a comfortable lifestyle to my future wife and children.
All in all, I guess I realize that my struggle to find life’s balance is not much different than anyone else. In fact, in many ways, I feel finding that “balance” is the “key to life”.
Life’s dichotomous journey takes us down paths both trodden and those unpaved, but feel content it always leaves an option to traverse down another direction or seek out a new adventure. There is no answer or magical solution, just opportunities for you to personally dismantle its web of discovery and find your own way.
- Ben
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