(Im)balanced
Life is a series of chapters, Keith H. Hammonds writes in Fast Company, not a fully realized plot.And that's why it's time to give up the misguided notion of a "balanced life."
The truth is, balance is bunk. It is an unattainable pipe dream, a vain artifice that offers mostly rhetorical solutions to problems of logistics and economics. The quest for balance between work and life, as we've come to think of it, isn't just a losing proposition; it's a hurtful, destructive one.
Contentedness outside of work, he writes, "is less a matter of doing more than of cutting back."
Obvious enough, isn't it? Life is about setting priorities and making trade-offs; that's what grown-ups do. But in our all-or-nothing culture, resorting to those sorts of decisions is too often seen as a kind of failure. Seeking balance, we strive for achievement everywhere, all the time--and we feel guilty and stressed out when, inevitably, we fall short.
It's good to see business turning toward a truth long-acknowledged by pop music and the Wisdom tradition of Judeo-Christian literature ("To everything there is a purpose, and a time for every matter under heaven," to quote Ecclesiastes.)
But how do pastoral caregivers, whose lives more often than not model a culture of overwork and overcommitment, provide authentic and faithful care to church members struggling with the guilt and stress that result from "falling short" of the cultural ideal?
(Note that "falling short" or "missing the mark" has long been one understanding of sin, albeit when sin is involved, the target we fail to hit is our sacred purpose, not a cultural ideal.)
It remains for pastoral theology to address the question above. Meanwhile, Hammonds offers his own guides to living and loving an unbalanced life and accommodating workaholic ways.
[And even here, Hammonds borrows from theology--pastoral theologian Wayne E. Oates was the first to coin the term "workaholic."]
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Wednesday, October 20, 2004