Equilibrium and the myth of balance
What you’ll learn about me is that I love to “work backwards,” which is why I’m going to start at the end, but promise I’ll get to where I’m going.
When I zoom way out and look at life as a whole I see that it can be divided into roughly four categories. These are not categories with hard, clean lines, they’re porous and what falls into each one may be different for you than it is for me. But, for most of us we have:
Family - your spouse, significant other, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, pets, your chosen family.
Work - the work you get paid to do and the unpaid care work you do.
Life Administration - all that stuff that has to get done to keep your life running (paying bills, doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, meeting with an attorney to create your will, therapy, haircuts, etc.)
Personal - the stuff that fills you up and keeps you sane (reading, exercising, traveling, keeping up with friends, learning a new hobby, doing nothing, etc.)
In a perfect world each of these would take up a quarter of each day. That’s balance right? But, what I have learned after years of believing the balance myth is that it feels so much better to let go of the expectation altogether. Embracing the fact that some days will be all about life administration and that’s okay, even on a *gasp* workday.
Being able to show up as a whole person at work who has feelings and emotions outside of the workplace that impact your performance actually makes it easier to do well at work. Accepting that you don’t have to do it all and if you selectively stop doing you will have more space for the things that bring you joy.
Understanding that the things that bring you joy are vitally important and make life more meaningful.
It is through an exploration of burnout and our society’s norms around work and personal lives that I came to the idea of equilibrium. I think of it as an older, more sophisticated cousin of “balance.” While equilibrium has a technical, Merriam-Webster definition, my version is more complex (as are all the great things in life, right?).
For starters, equilibrium is fluid and being recalibrated frequently; what it looked like yesterday may be different than what it looks like today. To be honest, for a recovering perfectionist and proud type-A that’s a scary thought. Routine, sameness, and rules kept me running for a long time. But,
The pandemic turned everything on its head. I could no longer survive on those same tightly held rules. I know many others are facing similar obstacles because study after study has shown that job satisfaction is down and unprecedented numbers of people are leaving their jobs looking for something different.
Equilibrium is having the space to deal with the things life throws at you and the equally important but often overlooked, time to process too. Equilibrium feels stable, it’s less worry and more certainty. It's a state where things feel okay, and I mean feel. Equilibrium is holistic; all parts are equally important and don’t happen only in specific time frames (*cough* 9-5 work day *cough*).
When you’re in equilibrium you can sustain the challenges life throws at you, which I’ve come to learn is just life itself. Life is a series of challenges with joy interspersed and equilibrium increases our resilience against the hard parts.
