1st TAKE/2nd LOOK: #27

Is Work/Life Balance an Urban Myth?

So close yet not. Taken on Haslam Terrace in the Hills of Hollywood, the Gray Lady cloaks herself in a misty marine layer. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

Your view depends on where you stand

Compass Star Wordsmith is closing in on two years of publishing! Mind-blowing it is. And this Monday(ish) post is now on #27, so that’s half a year of dropping a deuce a week. Eww. My vanity protest project grew up into a disciplined vanity project.

I have all of you to thank for that. The positive reactions I’ve received have been a powerful motivating force in my life. I’ve used that energy to keep posting through all my life’s ups and downs.

This thing has lasted longer than most hobbies have in my life. Certainly longer than working out (somehow I manage to keep my boyish good looks). Just when I wonder how long I can do this, some crazy rando thought jumps into my head, and I’m like - yeah. They’re gonna love this crazy rando shit.

Apparently, enough of you do like it and some of you have decided to pay me for the privilege. It just takes a minute for that to sink in. I get paid for writing things. Just that thought adds so much depth to my life. It truly fascinates me.

You can gladly add to that fascination by clicking little blue buttons. Happiness increases by clicking little blue buttons, studies show. Dr. Suess conducted the study. But find out here on your own.

It's not like I have to start thinking about writing. It’s more like I have to stop thinking about it sometimes. At first, it was pretty much the only thing in my lockdown-infected life for over a year. Then slowly, Covid released its iron grip on humanity.

Or rather, most sane folks decided around Feb 1 of this year, that’s it. By then, my appraisal gig had really taken off, and I was planning on how to spend all of the money that would soon be falling out of my butt. Careful about that. Shit again.

Still conducting real estate inspections, I’ve taken those appraisal skills and repurposed them for a different report. It’s a corner that I easily navigated. Some corners in my life, though, have been more challenging.

Most likely because I was barreling along at 100 mph, oblivious to life, and the corner jumped right out at me. That’s the thing about living life with only two speeds: Full and Wrecked. It’s hard to enjoy life in either state. Still learning.

The discipline writing gives me transfers to other parts of my life, personal and professional. It feels like balance, but I am unfamiliar with that particular concept. But here I am, juggling the kittens and not getting scratched as much. I think they like it now.

Click on Merle to hear a sad cowboy song. On your own sad streamer.

Click on Tracy to hear a sad cowboy song. On your own sad streamer.

NO. is a complete sentence.

Each song, from vastly different artists, sing about the thing I’m writing about. Balance. How’s it’s lost and what is gained when it is. And how to define balance on your terms.

Personal freedom and individual liberty are the two cornerstones of this project. Is an idea or action going to add more of those concepts into my life? Or will it suck my soul out? That’s how I decide balance now.

When I feel I’m getting out of balance, I stop to take inventory. What’s out of balance? My giving? Or people taking? My self-inventory checks things like intentions and expectations. Am I disappointed in me? Or in something someone else did to me?

Either answer is about me. Love me. Hate me. It’s still me that’s the object of your emotion. I speak in the royal voice (God Save the Queen. Oops. He didn’t) where we and me mean opposite things.

Life was divided before, when we went to work and then we came home. But covid divided life differently. It’s no longer What do you do? its Who’d you vote for?

Which brings me to a sensitive topic that arose today in casual conversation. Don’t talk to me if you voted for “him”. I replied “Obama?” “No, you republican!”

I would consider anyone that voted for POTUS 44 AND POTUS 45 to be, what’s the word? Oh. Balanced. Or at the least independent.

Not fair. Just balanced. Not your balance. Just mine. Barely so right now. But think about hating a person because of a vote for a political office. I don’t hate anyone because the situations of their life caused them to vote for a certain thing. I commend voting. Vote your ass off.

I just searched the POTUS list (fabbit-hole) and was curiously surprised by this crazy rando factoid: Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890 and the next one, JFK, popped out in 1917. That struck me as old and new. Balance?

Standing in the same spot, but with reality intruding its harshness upon my perspective. That’s how things change. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

Click on Aaron to hear a sad cowboy song. On your own sad streamer.

The value of protest is that there is a pro and a con. I’ve been both of those too. My life keeps dancing around the middle. When I get out of balance is such a new thought to me that I repeat it. So when it happens, I can respond.

And that works well enough right now for me to grow. We ask, no demand, so much of ourselves that we lose who we are. Down deep. I got balance by asking for it. I want balance in my life. It don’t come to you. You got to go get it.

The answer is no. Work/Life Balance is not a myth. I’ve had some glimpses of it. It looks pretty cool. I think I’ll check it out. You should to.

Ric