Juggling Act

Many of us are concerned about work life balance and the pursuit of happiness. What if there is no such thing as work life balance? What if life is a juggling act and not a balancing one? This could explain why we can never seem to find balance or have enough time for what really matters to us. The juggler just needs to make sure that he or she does not drop any of the items they are juggling. They do not need a perfect outcome, they just need to avoid disaster. If we are all jugglers, then we can stop trying to achieve the impossible (perfection), and just avoid the worst possible outcome instead (neglect). I know what some may be thinking: don’t you hit the object that you’re obsessively trying to avoid? That is the case when it comes to performing an action like skiing, driving, or any other activity that requires us to avoid hitting an object. When it comes to decision making on the other hand, you do not have that problem. Thought is a lot more complicated than action, it can be far more forgiving within the right mental frameworks.  


Giving things the right amount of attention will produce what we call work life balance. We cannot give unimportant things too much of our time and energy because that would result in there not being enough time for the things that matter. Perfect outcomes require us to focus obsessively on the item or activity that we are trying to perfect and this means the other items suffer neglect. We have seen countless examples of artists, performers, inventors, scientists, politicians, missionaries, and business people giving themselves over completely to their careers, only to end up alone, with no family at the end of their lives. We have to decide on our priorities in order to divide our time and attention accordingly. Living a decent life can be guaranteed by building your life on a foundational principle of avoiding the worst possible outcome. 


Life is a journey traveled one step at a time and if you make sure to take steps that are good, you can rest assured that you’re on the right track. You can juggle all the things that are important to you and make sure not to drop any of them. Swinging for the fences and focusing obsessively on one activity comes at a price. We need to consider all the possible outcomes, good and bad, and make sure we do not choose the worst. Politicians would have better policies if they thought about what could go wrong instead of what could go right. If they worked to avoid the worst possible scenario instead of trying to achieve the best possible goal, they would write policy with more pros than cons. 


Sometimes juggling requires setting an item down, so as to juggle the right set of items at the right time. As a teen, you juggle friendships, schoolwork, and extracurricular activities. As an adult, you juggle family, work, and social events. The items change as you move through life, but the act of juggling does not. We have to get good at juggling in order to handle the seasonal nature of life. John Butler Yates once said that: "happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure, nor this nor that, it is growth, and I tend to believe him." Progress makes us experience what we call happiness. Perfecting the process, and not the outcome, will allow us to experience happiness. Knowing what to juggle and for how long will help us avoid letting the important things fall through the cracks. We will be individuals who give things the right amount of time and energy.


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