In my view I believe we are in an era that has subconsciously programmed and conditioned us to believe that we can impeccably achieve the perfect balance between family, health, friends and career whether male or female. For argument sake, I will mostly focus this post on women than men. This is not in any way discriminative or sexist ideology, but merely based on beliefs I have come to think is very emotional topic and one that conjures all types of feelings from extreme feminists to one that plays a devil's advocate. I have read, heard and listened to different variations on this debatable topic and majority viewpoint usually tries to end on a positive affirmative note with a resounding yes, we can if we know how to. So the question I therefore ask is what if you don't know how to or find out how to, then I guess you're pretty much back to square one of where you started when you wanted to achieve this idyllic balance and solution to your nightmare (it is a crazy frenzy when everything around you feels and look like it's going to open up and gulp you in one big swallow).
This somewhat confusion is not helped, when the media and celebrities portrays that it is indeed feasible and if you're not on the same line and in tune, then possibly you are a massive messy failure and one that needs to be sent to faraway place to be taught this super cool way of balancing life and making it look easy and flawless. Well I guess a few of us (real experiencing beings will be deported and even become the largest residents, as I'm sure deep down we all at one point remove this false mask and realise that we are only fooling ourselves). Then again, we have become a society that demands the absolute best and if it means faking it until you make it and showcase that it is indeed attainable, the lesson will be then either join the runaway train of the superhuman or be prepared to be shipped way (metaphorical of course) to the other planet.
I will illustrate this point further by two different friends who both ultimately met in the middle and at the same point even though they individually journeyed different paths, believing that the road they were travelling on was the consciously saint way of achieving the right balance. Hypothetically, I will name the first friend as 'Yasmin Possible 'and the second 'Nelly Impossible' for the purpose of this post. Yasmin is highly ambitious and strong believer in working within the corporate world and especially since she has worked her way up the career ladder and rightly so, wanted to enjoy her achievements and progress even further, just like her heroine Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo). Apart from her busy hectic career life, she is also a mother to a son and another on the way very soon. So far, she has managed to juggle the life of raising one child, loving her husband unconditionally, maintaining and keeping a house, handling a high-flying career and believed another child to the mix will not be a major challenge. You see, she believed she could, until somehow our motherly instincts start to play a little guilty trip on us and start making us question our abilities, capabilities and our self-worth.
This stems from the fact that she now feels like maybe chasing a path of progressing on the career ladder is not worth missing out on her new baby on the way. She is even going as far to justify why she cannot achieve the perfect balance of life and work. Granted that she is aware that it will definitely stretch her, stress her out and possibly make her doubt herself constantly until she changes her beliefs and attitudes, however she posed the question 'can she actually do it when the new-born arrives', I simply said and always say to women who seeks advice and guidance is 'why do you want to achieve that balance'. It may sound silly and obvious but this actually made her reflect on what her major priorities and values in life is, and thankfully just her name suggests, she realised that it can indeed be possible if she just align her belief system to resonate to her true value which is Family followed by Career. She didn't need much convincing or persuading as within few moments of voicing her concern, she instantly had her answer all along, which fortunately run the course of carry on working until the new-born arrives, then take her mandatory statutory maternity leave and then resume back to her career life on a full-time basis and ride the course until her circumstance changes (which won't be based on rearing of children, but more of if her job requires her to).
In contrast, the other friend Nelly was very positive and adamant that achieving the right balance can be done and held onto that belief until she realised that in fact she can achieve this balance if she steps down from the corporate ladder and engineer her career to benefit her life which now evolves around making sure her children are getting the life lessons she want to instil and make sure that she is involved in the education process and enhancing the new freedom of parenting her children with as much love and attention as they need. Listening to the friend explain and conclude that she only felt like she was achieving the perfect balance when she had the will to decide when, where and how she works and balance with the freedom to be part of her children lives.
Therefore to surmise and bring this post to the end, which I suspect will never have a happy ending, I have concluded and basing from numerous conversations with different women from different continents and culture, I believe what every woman truly wants and yearn for is to be stupendously set free to ride the course of life by what they see fit without the pressure of society to conform and imitate what the impossible roles the media and world dictates to them what it truly means to achieve the right balance. If your life purpose is based on achieving perfect peace, love and happiness then I guess you are a living proof of this myth of hitting the perfect balance of life and work, as you see life in itself is work (with parenting, constant search of our true self and maintaining a healthy lifestyle), so really you are already aiming right but with the misconception generated by external factors, we get lost in the mist and our minds get clouded slightly that we end up punishing ourselves instead of living the moment and enjoying every single moment of our time on this earth.
It is indeed easier said than done but by realising where your values lies and having the mentality to realise that you can only achieve this equilibrium of getting the right balance is by letting go of any hung ups, false ideologies of what is needed and required of you particularly if you are a working man or woman, stay at home mum or dad, single mother or father or even struggling parent, fear not you are not the only one who is constantly working on bettering yourself and having that inner peace to appreciate you, just you.
If you would like to discuss or get advice on a one to one basis or purely want to speak about a particular issue, do get in touch and I would be more than happy to help. http://www.eventhelpersbytj.com.
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