Having It All?

I stumbled across an online series on work-life balance on CNN.com this week, entitled "HAVING IT ALL: Work-Life Balance". There are several interesting topics covered in the articles in this series, and I'll comment on a few of them in the next couple of posts. But let's start with that title.

HAVING IT ALL. Is that really the goal? I believe that trying to have it all--the unchecked desire to accept no limits on money, stuff, achievements, status, hobbies, or time--is the genesis of the rat race. We want all the work we can get, without sacrificing our home life or hobbies. We want leisure to pursue our hopes and dreams, without sacrificing our career ambitions. But there are only 24 hours in the day, and the number of our days is limited, so we can't have unlimited wants. Thus every day we face micro choices with our time and attention that reflect the macro dilemmas of our lives: career vs. children; status vs. spouse; work vs. play; finances vs. friends. Presumably a series on work-life balance should help us decide NOT to try to have it all, but rather to have just enough: just enough work to satisfy our ambition, and just enough life to satisfy our soul. Finding that dividing line is an intensely personal quest, and where to draw the line is often difficult to discern.

Present Tense Living is not about having it all, it is about deciding what you WILL have. Many of us are blessed with a wealth of opportunity and choices: jobs, where to live, choices of stuff, travel, hobbies, etc. We can choose, and choose we must. If your ambition is strong and leads you to a demanding career that requires long hours, then by all means go for it--do your best, do it for the Lord, and don't look back. But make that choice fully aware that your choice means you won't be able to have the same family life, or pursue the time-consuming hobbies, of someone who chooses a slower track. To pretend otherwise will only frustrate you.

Similarly, if you choose a slower lane on purpose in order to leave plenty of time for cultivating relationships and hobbies, then don't lament you relative lack of material resources and long for the material goods that you can't afford but the person working twice as much can. We can't "have it all"--both time and money with no limits--and so we must learn to be content with what we do have, once we have been explicit about the choices we make.

So don't get caught in the trap of trying to have it all. It's impossible, and you have to be deliberate about where you draw the lines in your life. Make sure you choose where to draw them; don't let someone else draw them for you. To the extent that a series on work-life balance can help us make that decision, then it will be a welcome tool indeed.