Work / Life Balance

I wanted it to exist so badly. I believed that it would exist if I just tried hard enough. That impossible work/life balance that everyone seems to be seeking.....I thought I could find it.

I thought that I could fit my "work from home job" into a nice little box and only work when I said I was going to work.


Oh, how incredibly wrong I was! It's been four years now that I've been working from home, and I am convinced that there is no such thing as work/life balance (at least not in the way we think about it).

I thought that finding balance would mean working exactly when I said I was going to work and doing home and family stuff exactly when I said I was going to.

But it has never turned out that way.

Orville Thompson, Scentsy's CEO, has often given us the analogy of the work/life balance being similar to an orchestra. I have heard him talk about this so many times, but I just wanted to believe that "balance" existed the way I wanted it to.

Orville talks about how in an orchestra, each section of instruments has their own time to play. There are times when only the violins play, times when only the cellos play, times when only the clarinets play...I think you get the point. And then there are times when all the instruments play together. None of it is more beautiful than any other part. It's the whole that makes the symphony.

Our lives are much like that. There are times when work comes first for a short time, times when everything we do for a period of time centers around family and so on.

As of late, my frustration has come from trying to separate all the parts of my life...Scentsy, my kids, my husband, my relationships, my prayer time, foster care, Bible study.....I have been trying to make each part fit into it's own neat little box.

But that's not where balance comes from. There is no clocking in and clocking out of life. It's an ebb and flow. It all works together. And when it does all work together, that's when you get your symphony.

Do you remember that movie, Mr. Holland's Opus? This is my favorite quote from that movie. It's the part that makes me cry every time.

Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life and on a lot of lives I know. But I have a feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his. And this was going to make him famous, rich, probably both. But Mr. Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure. But he would be wrong, because I think that he's achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life. 

The music of our lives is the everyday. The rain. The tears. The hard times. The good times. The laughter. The smiles. The messes. The chaos. The work. The play. That is the symphony. It doesn't all work separately to make the music of our lives. The pieces are intertwined. When all the instruments play together, we get the music of our lives.

Maybe balance really is the key to life, but I don't think it works the way we think it does. There is beauty in the mix. Have you found it?

.....day 228 of a year of writing.....