The Work/Life Balance Meme

Lillie Ammann tagged me with a meme — you know, the “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” word of our day (as described by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Lillie’s meme has to do with balancing work/life issues and, believe me, I have seen all of this put to the test over the past ten days ever since my wife’s recovery from foot surgery meant me taking on full responsibility of tending to the needs of our two young boys. Talk about exhausting!

Anyway, Lillie proffered five questions to five people she tagged giving us the option to answer some or all of them. I couldn’t resist, therefore I chose to answer each one.

How do you achieve balance in your life?
Prayer! I don’t take the responsibility of carrying my load lightly as I simply cannot do this all by myself. Asking God’s help and guidance as the day begins (and throughout for that matter) tends to lift even the heaviest burden.

What is your biggest challenge in balancing your life?
Making sure that my wife and our sons do not lose the time that they need to have with me (and I with them). Sometimes that means turning down a project or telling someone that I am currently not available. Sure, it has cost me financially on occasion, but as much as I like my work there are times when I simply say, “enough.” I am certain when our children our grown that their most memorable times with me will not be when they saw me sitting in my Lazy Boy plunking on the keys of my laptop!

What are your priorities?
God, family, church, work, personal needs.

How have your priorities changed over time and why?
My wife and I married later in life and our children came to us by means of adoption. Before we met, both of us were satisfied with our jobs and we enjoyed spending time with friends. Today, our immediate family and my work takes up most of our time with weekends reserved for family time and for church services.

What advice can you share to help all of us balance our own lives?
Log off. Seriously, even though there are days when my computer is on constantly, I will put it on hibernate to take a walk, hang out with my wife, call a friend, help our children with a special project, etc. Sometimes deadlines are set in stone making it impossible to stop what you are doing. However, if your life is constantly driven by inflexible deadlines, then why is that?

Feel free to create your own meme based on this theme and link back to Lillie’s blog entry or simply hit the reply button here to share your comments.

Thank you, Lillie.

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