The Balancing Act

The more I think about it the more I ultimately come to the definitive conclusion that life truly is one huge balancing act. And I think that is the way God intended it to be as well. I know that our purpose for being on Earth is to be tested and for our Heavenly Father to see what we will choose when it really comes down to it - good or evil. But what about all the other things in between?

Most days when I wake up I don't feel like I'm having to decide between true good and evil choices. I'm not going to go rob a bank; I'm not gonna kidnap a small child, i'm not gonna put explosives in your mailbox(unless you've really pissed me off)or attempt to ruin someone's day in anyway. The most common battle that I undertake each day is more about how to balance and prioritize the hopefully good decisions that I need to make every day.

Finding a good balance can be really hard. With all the opportunities and options the world we live in offers us, it can be overwhelming trying to decide what we should chose, how much of it to chose, and when to chose it! For example, having a job is obviously something wonderful, something that provides us with satisfaction, self worth, growth...etc. It's important to work hard in life. But where do you draw the line? We've all known workaholics that seem to do more of that than anything else in life. So work is a good thing...but only in moderation and if it is properly balanced with other important things. Let's not be lazy, but there are so many other important things in life aside from a career. The same thing goes for the flip side. Life is meant to be enjoyed and meant for fun, but a life lived solely to seek after pleasure isn't very fulfilling either and your personal growth becomes stagnant. I believe that this is a huge challenge we are all faced with - to find that balance.

Aside from just the work and play balance, I think there are many other daily choices we have to analyze in our minds to determine what to do and how much of it to do in order to keep that balance. Just the simple decisions on what you fill your time with. For example - the internet. I can hardly remember life without the internet, but I do remember dial-up and AOL! Now the internet is such a huge part of our lives, and truly such a blessing for so many reasons! I recently started doing family history and having the internet machine to search around on and use for research is incredible. How did people do it before?? And so many simple easy questions can be answered with one search on Google. Planning out a trip to Ireland becomes super easy when you have access to so many reviews and tour sites all just a click away. Or using YouTube to learn how to dance like Micheal Jackson. So many more things available to us that just wouldn't even be possible 15 years ago. It's amazing. And now we have facebook to reconnect us with all our BFFs from kindergarten and to stay in touch with strangers that become friends while sitting next to them on airplanes.

But we also know that too much of this good thing can also be bad. I hate thinking about lost hours I've spent on facebook that could've been used for something more productive. Something that would help me grow, something that would help me improve as a person. Sure, staying in touch and checking out cool pictures someone posted is not a bad thing at all. But staying up until 2 in the morning talking to people or looking at posts most likely won't help you become a better person. What I mean is, to add up empty hours spent there and calculate how these hours could have been spent at the gym, reading scriptures, cleaning your room, reading a good book, helping a friend or someone else in need, working on/developing one of your hobbies...etc...it can be a little depressing. It's like an opportunity cost calculation. I could chose to do this for a while today...and it's fine...but what am I missing out on because of it? The thing is that there is nothing wrong with facebook, or blogs, or YouTube, or watching TV and other entertaining (but mostly mindless) things - once again the key here is balancing. This one can be particularly hard - have you ever noticed how quickly time can fly by when you're stalking someone on facebook? Uhh I mean....watching YouTube videos...

Anyways there are a bazillion things I could think of that are great things, but only in moderation.. but this blog is already super long and now it seems completely ironic that I’ve spent an hour writing this blog while talking about how balance is important and spending too much time online can be bad. Haha. Oh well. And now you've had to spend way too much of your time reading this long thing. Sorry!!! I totally lied when I said my blogs would get short.

With all this being said, there's no need to stress out and calculate each hour of our lives and make sure that it is all productive and balanced. That's way too much, and I am definitley not an anal person by nature and typically don't think there is ever a need to be. However, I think if we just have the main goal of balance and moderation in our lives that the daily decisions will become clear and we will know when things might be out of balance and are in need for some fine tuning. I really feel like the balance is one of our largest lessons and something that we continually learn and relearn throughout our lives. That's what life is all about - constant learning and consistent growing. Dr. Suess will totally agree with me as he said,
“Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.”
What a brilliant Doctor.