Pursuing Balance

Most of us have trouble juggling. The woman who says she doesn't is someone whom I admire but have never met. Barbara Walters

If you were to choose one word to describe your daily life, what would it be?

Busy?

Mundane?

Exciting?

Stressful?

Happy?

Mine would probably be busy Occasionally stressful. Oftentimes happy. It's not necessarily a "bad busy" or "super stressful," but my days are definitely full and intense, with happiness throughout. With a full-time career, a husband, two kids, a new house (that needs a lot of work), friends I want to hang out with, and a variety of other commitments, life seems to move at warp speed. And most women I know seem to feel the same way—always juggling all the responsibilities of work and home, family and friends, ourselves and others. Always searching for balance.

One of my own times of struggle with this started pretty innocently when I decided to join a book club. It had been two years since I had last been actively involved in one, and my soul was craving the community

The club was every Tuesday night, and my husband, Matthew, and I decided that it would be best if on those days, I would work a little later and go straight to the club from my office. What I didn't realize when I signed up for the book club was that two weeks into it, our family was also supposed to start attending a new weekly community group through our church. I wanted to be part of both, and it seemed doable.

The first two weeks of the book club went great. I loved both the friend leading it and the new women I met. This addition to our weekly schedule seemed like it was going to work.

Well, I was wrong.

The first week we were supposed to go to community group, I was incredibly stressed. I had just come back from a business trip, my daughter was teething and going to bed earlier than normal, and rushing out the door to community group made little sense. So I sent an apologetic text to the group leader and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

The next week was not much better, with my schedule overflowing with commitments and deadlines. I stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and crying. When my husband, Matthew, asked what was wrong, I said, "I'm doing too much. I'm overwhelmed. I'm tired. I'm stressed. I can't do it all."

The Balance Challenge

The book club and community group conundrum is just one of numerous times when I have wrestled with balance. My guess is that you too have had a similar wrestling match, trying to wrangle too many things into some sort of order, all in pursuit of this elusive goal of "balance."

When I wrote the survey for this book, I asked participants, "What do you think is most challenging about being a woman today?" I suspected many would say, "Trying to balance everything," and I was right. In the more than five hundred pages of responses I received, over and over women—regardless of location, age, marital and economic status—said things like this:

• Trying to balance everything since we tend to overextend our lives. We all want to have a work life that validates us as independent women. We want to be the best mom at creating moments for our children. And then throw in the family members and friends. It's a lot!—Mary

• So much to balance. Between kids, household duties, cooking, striving to have a healthy marriage, and all the things in between, it can be very difficult to find time for yourself.—Katie

• I think it is very difficult to find the perfect balance of being a good wife, mother, employee, friend, daughter, sister.—Katrina

• Having to work at the same time I have to be with my children as well as being there for my husband. On top of taking care of our finances and home and making sure I find time for my relationship with God.—Melissa

• Being a single mom is tough. I have to balance two worlds, and I have no one to help me carry the burden.—Andrea

• Balancing the home/work life. I feel that modern women are pulled in so many directions and held to a higher standard than ever before. It is so hard to balance it all and still find time for yourself.—Ashley

• Trying to find the balance between working and being an involved mother. From a working mother's perspective, it is such a challenge to organize and ensure that my kids are looked after when my husband and I can't be there and to allow them the chances to be involved in things without being limited by the fact that I work.—Melanie

I found myself nodding my head over and over again as I read the truth-filled, vulnerable words of these women of all ages proclaiming how balancing all that life brings is incredibly challenging. Even if you don't use the word "balance" to describe this issue, you can't deny the challenge. You might talk instead about "priorities," "fit," or "organization." However you define the act of having things in order and not being overwhelmed, that is what I want to dig into.

In my own life, the balancing act includes blogging first thing in the morning, getting two kids ready for day care and dropping them off on my way to the office, working all day, picking up the kids after work, getting dinner ready, putting the kids to bed, and spending time with my husband. On top of the everyday tasks are the one-offs—grocery shopping, Target runs, doctor appointments, birthday parties, soccer games, paying bills, and so on. Can you relate?

Take a minute to make a list of your average week's responsibilities:

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When I see all of these things on paper, the idea of achieving balance seems ridiculous. We talk about needing it. Books are written about how to find it. But the reality is, for most women, it never happens in any sort of permanent way. Instead, we have moments of balance, maybe even days of it. But then something happens that causes things to become out of whack again.

What is it about balance that is so elusive today? Are we really able to balance it all? In short, no. I don't think true balance really exists. That said, I do think the word is helpful as a guiding principle for how we choose to live. Let's start by trying to understand what balance really means.

Defining Balance

Two of the many dictionary...