We love to segment our lives in every way possible. I, for one, have 10+ calendars on Google Calendar. One is for fitness and shows only active activities in green. Another is for schoolwork which is yellow probably because school buses are yellow. I even have a purple calendar marked \u201creligious\u201d that shows mass and confession times. These parts of my life are distinct, segregated, and separate.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t help but wonder what balance means, looking at my Google Calendar. Is balance the moment the screen displays all 10 calendars in their spectral vibrance? Or might it mean something the website can\u2019t quite depict\u2014unscheduled, quality time to myself, with others, or with God? Balance is this elusive subject that seems to be the obsession of \u201cthought leaders,\u201d self-help authors, and the motivational parts of YouTube, yet one that some of the most successful people don\u2019t seem to have. In other words, the 0.01% of doers seem absolutely obsessed with their end goal\u2014and likely achieve it\u2014at the expense of their closest relationships.<\/p>\n
Steve Jobs and Elon Musk come to mind when talking about this elite group\u2014both people I tend to admire. I love their drive, their commitment, even their brutality at times. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s required to be successful,\u201d I might think. But then I look at their personal lives: the divorces, the paternity denial, the burned bridges of former employees. This summer, I watched a documentary on famous Hollywood directors that asked the question, \u201cDo you have to be an asshole to be successful?\u201d No, I don’t want to believe that. So there\u2019s this other part of me that rejects that familial and relational imbalance. I want a family, and a strong family at that. But I also want that astounding success. It doesn\u2019t seem you can have it all\u2014but that\u2019s not what we\u2019re told.<\/p>\n
A major factor in our generation, of course, is FOMO\u2014fear of missing out. I don\u2019t mean this in the sense of \u201cgoing out or staying in on a Friday night\u201d but a much deeper, sobering, nagging question: \u201cwas my potential misused?\u201d There\u2019s an incredible fear of what might have become of us, what could\u2019ve been. Maybe if I had focused all my energy into piano when I began lessons at age 5, maybe if I had chosen that Ivy League, maybe if I had worked out every day, maybe if I had paid attention in class\u2014I might be\u2026something.<\/p>\n
This is such a harmful mantra, but it only gets reinforced by our infinitely scrollable feeds. Everyone on Instagram has ridiculous vacations, is incredibly fit, and has happy friends. They cook Food-network-like meals and can scrapbook like Martha Stewart. They\u2019re also artists, but nail the candid didn\u2019t-know-the-camera-was-catching-me-laugh pose. It\u2019s the new social currency, and it makes us feel like we\u2019re deficient in most parts of our lives. But we\u2019re not, we\u2019re all human. Being a rockstar in one area likely means deficiency in another.\u00a0 <\/span>If you\u2019ve ever read about the training regimen it takes to be a Marvel character, you\u2019d likely realize that\u2019s not the life you want to live.<\/p>\n So can you be a Steve Jobs while maintaining a healthy family life? How much of the screen should the \u201cfamily\u201d Google calendar take up? I don\u2019t have an answer here yet, but I can tell you most of the people we strive to be like have incredible imbalance in their lives. Life has tradeoffs after all.<\/p>\n So in picking a company to work for, a part of my life that will take up 40 or more hours a week, I\u2019d like to think that I take balance into consideration. I\u2019m looking for a place that prioritizes family, flexibility, and health. I want to feel energized going into work and want success at the company to be measured not by rank but well-being. Of course, maybe that\u2019s not possible\u2014for me at least, that\u2019s asking to have it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We love to segment our lives in every way possible. I, for one, have 10+ calendars on Google Calendar. One is for fitness and shows only active activities in green. Another is for schoolwork which is yellow probably because school buses are yellow. I even have a purple calendar marked \u201creligious\u201d that shows mass and … Continue reading Balance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2739,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2739"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/michael-mcroskey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}