It’s nearly the end of January and how are those resolutions coming along?
Years ago, I’d start every new year with a long list of tasks I needed to do, things I needed to change about myself and milestones that needed ticking off. Over the years, that list shrunk to just a sentence or two, until I came to the realisation that even those few items were too fraught with the possibility of failure. So, I settled on a word. One word that would define what needed accomplishing that year. That word has ranged from kindness, discipline, health and relationships to travel, adventure, happiness and contentment. Specific to nebulous, I’ve covered the gamut.
This year’s word is balance.
I am apt to get swallowed whole by my latest venture/hobby/passion. I hurtle into projects, bite off more than I can chew, and spread myself too thin, too often. I never do things by half-measures, and while that can be extremely useful sometimes (like completing a project to a deadline), mostly, it isn’t healthy; it isn’t sustainable and often it leaves me feeling wrung-out and close to collapse. So, what is the answer? Balance, I find.
Balance in all aspects of life. From food to sleep to exercise; from work to writing to travel. To truly enjoy and get the best out of all the above, it is necessary to apply a modicum of restraint to them all. An equity that translates into a calm, even-handed application of self to pursuits of work and pleasure. An equivalent proportioning of the day that encompasses everything with the harmony of parity. No one task is greater than the other, and to each I give the same time and attention.
Easier said than done.
Applying this gentle word to all aspects of my life is proving to be a challenge. Getting carried away is a part of my personality. If I’m writing, and in the flow, how do I just abandon that to get up and mop the floor? If I’m watching a particularly riveting episode of ‘Peaky Blinders’, how do I switch it off to go to bed because it’s 10pm? If the pizza I’m indulging in is really yummy, how do I set half of it aside for lunch tomorrow?
Balance is tricky. It requires a dose of discipline alongside.
There are days that I’m exhausted and can’t get out of bed at the first sound of the alarm, when the snooze button is my best friend, and the duvet a cocoon I refuse to leave. There are also days when I simply cannot fall asleep at will, when my mind is jumping from thought to thought like a manic acrobat, insomnia mocking me from the digital time reflected on my ceiling. There are days when sugar is the only solution to problems little and large, chocolate the only answer to an existential conundrum. What then?
Kindness is another ingredient that needs adding to this dish called balance.
Months can go by when friends are too busy to make plans with me, and then, suddenly, like buses, social engagements can arrive all at once, derailing the month of calm, collected work/life balance I’d planned for myself. Family crises rarely announce themselves in advance, they just occur. And when they do, everything is thrown into disarray, including whatever notion of balance I might exercise in that moment. Flights can cancel; travel plans can change. Health can play hooky, backs can twinge, and coughs can lodge themselves deep in chests. What happens to the harmony of parity then?
Surely, a dash of improvisation wouldn’t go amiss with this balance thing?
Moods are another battlefield. Not naturally sanguine, I’m not always Debbie Downer either. But each day can bring a different mood in its wake. I could go from sunny to stormy in a nanosecond. My hormones can drive me batty at the drop of a… (you name it). I can switch from Glinda to Elphaba on a dime, channel Cruella or the Dalai Lama on a whim, be the fairy godmother or the wicked stepsister, depending on which way the wind blows. Not the even keel I envision when I picture applying balance to my life.
Clearly, balance is a heavy word. Too heavy for me. I’m already getting bent out of shape trying to practise it.
Tell you what: let’s just dispense with this entire New Year, New Me concept. I like the old me. I’ll stick to her and muddle through this year as I’ve done through all the others before.
Now, isn’t that the most balanced thing you’ve read today? 😉
