The Myth of Balance
I had intended to write a blog post last week about a Facebook post a colleague wrote about Halloween that was entirely different from the blog post I wrote, and just right for her. It was a perfect example of how we can adopt seemingly opposing ideas of parenting and still be doing what’s best for ourselves and our children. But instead of writing that email, I was busy with baking and treasure hunts, with beading and shaving cream, with refereeing and (attempts at) regulating. All due to a covid exposure at my kids' school and an unexpected week at home. (We’re grateful there have been no subsequent positive tests and everyone is still healthy.)
What timing! Here I am on my second “weekly” email and already I missed it, already life has gotten “in the way” of my sticking with my plan. Not to mention, I have this workshop coming up tomorrow, and I was supposed to be preparing for that, too.
As it turns out, there’s something serendipitous about this timing. What better preparation for a workshop on the challenge of ever feeling like we’ve done enough than being placed in this position in which I am faced with the challenge more intensely than usual? What better preparation than feeling pulled to ask myself the exact question I would be telling participants to avoid asking: what are all the things I didn’t get to today?
The expression “work-life balance” leads us to believe that there is an optimal amount of work and an optimal amount of life and if we can just line these up in the right configuration, we’ll feel good about how it’s going, it’ll feel like we can do it. If we can just focus on balance, we'll get into tree pose -- no problem.
But balance oversimplifies the situation. Balance is great -- if nothing ever changes. Consider standing on one foot, consider "tree pose": you might be able to do that for a long time, but what happens when someone comes over and gives you a little nudge? What happens when it's time to move to the next pose? If you fall it wasn’t because of a lack of balance, it was because something changed the balance equation making your personal balance irrelevant.
Or, if you prefer another way of thinking about it: imagine a building in an earthquake. When engineers think about how best to build structures to survive earthquakes, they design for movement. Balance is important, sure, but it’s not enough on its own: the building needs to be strong and flexible, too, to be ready to respond to unexpected motion, and it also needs support to ensure the response is sustainable.
It turns out balance is not a helpful term for figuring out how to manage the stuff that happens at home and the stuff that happens at work. If I have my home life and my work life “balanced” -- even if the balance feels perfect -- what happens when the unexpected motion, the sick day, the last-minute report, the quarantine week, the staff member quitting, the pandemic, appears and disrupts my balance?
Instead of balance, let's think about stability. Stability requires balance, strength, flexibility, and support. Just like parenting, just like leadership. Simply balancing won’t work. Flexibility on its own is not enough, either - that's when you start to look like slime (another of my activities from this week - trust me, not good building material). Design yourself a building that has cross bracing and a strong foundation, and also one that can sway. Because there’s going to be motion.
What ways have you found stability as a parent or at work or both? Let me know!