Blogging on the beach? I'm envious!

The fact of the matter is that work-life balance is whatever you define it to be.

Where we get into trouble is when we try to live someone else's ideal of life balance. We are constantly being bombarded with the notion that work-life balance is crucial to leading a happy life. Self-help authors and the mainstream media and popular culture share with us their precise points of view as to what our lives should look like. We’re warned that there’s a perfectly balanced state that we can achieve if only we work more intensely, are superior at managing our time, are more efficient at every task we undertake, have each of our “spaces” organized, and/or are more adept at saying “NO” and standing for it.

Unfortunately, these well-meaning providers of opinion leave us with feelings of frustration and inadequacy, for we‘ve now indirectly been given a new standard by which to measure our own lives. Their suggestions of how to “take control” of our lives seldom bear any resemblance to what our lives currently look like. Upon examination and reflection, we find that, when compared to the model of stability presented to us, we see that we simply don’t make the grade. It’s now been made abundantly clear to us that our lives are unbalanced and totally out of control. In addition, we now feel incompetent, guilty, and hopeless because we’ve added one more idyllic aspiration that we can never attain and that we’ll beat ourselves up about over and over again, adding more traumas to our already stressed-out existence.

What’s wrong here is not that we want to live balanced lives, it’s that we’ve swallowed hook, line, and sinker someone else’s concept of what balance is. We’ve let somebody who knows nothing about us tell us how we should define our lives.

Is it wrong to want to achieve a balanced life? Of course not! We simply need to make certain that we understand and define what balance means to us and what our hopes, dreams, and aspirations are. We cannot allow someone else to tell us what life balance should mean to us, nor can we fall into the trap of trying to mirror someone else’s version of the perfectly balanced life. What we can do is create our own definitions of balanced lives and live them!

I truly believe that not only does each of us have the ability to create the lives that we truly desire; everything we need to live that life is already inherent within each of us.

There’s no magic for success in life. No book or column or self-help author or advice columnist can analyze your life, nor discover what you hope it to be. Only you can.

And that's exactly what you're doing on that beach in Hawaii! You've defined what balnce means to you and you're creating that balance by taking action to achieve and maintain it in your life. I congratulate you for that.

David B. Bohl

http://reflectionscoaching.typepad.com

Thanks for sharing your insights and your URL. I see you are a work-life professional, and I love the "father's group" that you are forming for working dads!

Hi @ll...

When it comes to work life balance, I plan to work from abroad, hopefully with my feet in the water... Living somewere close to the sea and work remote for half a year or so still is my dream. I work at HP and I got it approved...

Now question is, are there any HP locations close to the beach? Nice to live, calm place, and were I could rent a place for me and my wife to stay? Tips are more than welcome, please send them to s.mehtala@gmail.com

Cheers and regards,

Sam