Everyone seems to be searching for something called work/life balance these days. I’ve got bad news for you: it doesn’t exist. Why? Because work is meant to be part of life, not the whole of life.
Humans are not meant to rush around.
Chasing this, that, then yet another object of attention, leads to divided focus. We never concentrate on what we are doing for long before we move onto the next thing. We are fragmented.
And we are not simply fragmented in our daily doings. We are fragmented in our minds. How many of us can say our mind is truly at peace? Perhaps Zen monks, but they have an easy life.
Most of us have a mind that flits from one concern to the other, often with no discernible rhyme or reason. The damnable thing about this state of our mind is that we accept it as normal. But it’s not normal. It’s a bunch of noise that prevents us from having any peace.
This state of being constantly agitated is not natural. If you don’t believe me, go out to nature and look for yourself.
The tree does not spend its time worrying that its leaves will fall. Its leaves fall and it’s still the same tree. Then, later, its leaves regrow. And still, it is the same tree.
The tiger does not get up concerned about where it will find food that day. Instead it gets up, exerts some effort to find food and when it does, it eats. After eating it sleeps and starts the whole thing over again the next day.
Of all the objects in the natural world, perhaps the best object to take a lesson from is the sun.
The sun takes two courses. There is the daily course, wherein the sun rises, shines for a time, then sets. Then there is the yearly course, where the sun makes an apparent loop around the Earth.
Each day the sun rises, it rises at a slightly different point in the sky. In other words, it makes slow but sure progress in its journey around the Earth. Because it rises at a slightly different point, though, does not change the fact that it shines for a number of hours each day before appearing to dip below the horizon in a glorious spectacle.
When the sun shines, it shines intently; if you’re not careful, you can get burned.
This is how we should endeavour to live. As we rise each day, we should be prepared to work diligently at what we need to work at for that day.
As we work, we should concentrate our efforts instead of allowing our effort to be diffused, like sunlight passing through a prism.
When we work in a concentrated way, our presence shines brightly for all to see. We will be described as dazzling, heated, and intense. We will bring heat and life to all the lives we touch. In other words, we will be just like the sun.
At the end of our day, we should also do as the sun does and dip below the horizon of the world to rest up for another day.
As important as it is to get things done during the day, it is equally important to take advantage of times of rest. We need time to process our day, recover our energy and set ourselves up to face the next day successfully.
And, just like the sun, as we arise the next day it will be at a point further along in our journey. And we will shine again for all to see.
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