Jeffrey Patnaude, Business Life Magazine
Living Simultaneously
Balancing Work, Personal Relationships, and Care for Self
When we think of ourselves as having separate lives-our “work life,” our “family life,” our “love life” our “recreational life,” our “spiritual life” -we lose sight of the fact that these many “lives” are really all one life. We cannot send the mind to work, reserve the heart for the family, and schedule play for our individual selves. When we work we create, when we create we play, when we play we love, when we love we create. Our life is really one continuous flow. When we live each day in this endless flow, we are living simultaneously.
Usually the first attempt for achieving the elusive luxury of life balance is a commitment to compartmentalize: get better organized, join a gym, take a vacation, create a partner date night, or somehow find more time. We dissect our lives, examining how we spend our time, repositioning our focus and our energies, thinking we have created the perfect formula for balance. But then something happens. The next day arrives and all has changed. So we begin again.
The only predictable aspect of life is life’s unpredictability. The mechanistic view of Sir Issac Newton no longer serves a quantum world in which everything is constantly changing, fiercely connected, and infinitely more interesting than we ever imagined. In a universe where interdependence is the essence of our being, the relationship between work, others, and ourselves is who we are. Each is connected, affected, influenced and changed by the other. We cannot successfully place aspects of our lives into many bowls, as if our existence were a grand feast. We are instead a cosmic soup, and every aspect of who we are is cooking in one pot.
When we begin to understand that the “different lives” of work, relationships and self-care are one life, that is really ours to live, we can begin to see our life as a lovely, intricately woven, and seamless tapestry. Unlike the more common patchwork quilt, our lives can be seamless – flowing into and intertwining with the many colors, textures, and patterns of one fabric. Living simultaneously honors this interconnectedness and develops fresh ways of integrating the notion that we can live all aspects of one life at the same time.
As I sit and write these words, the worlds of work, relationship, and self – care merge with ease, and without any attempt on my part. It may seem that my work is how I spend my time or earn money. But more than this, my work is the essence of who I am. It is the vehicle for my values. One of the values that drives my work is freedom – to be free of self – limiting fears; to help others move beyond the barriers that prevent them from achieving wholeness. The varied dimensions of my work reflect this value.
Synchronistically, the phone just rang. It was my friend, Joyce,who has decided to divorce after 13 years of marriage. Although it is an early Saturday morning, she knows she can find me in my office. We talk for 45 minutes and I help this brilliant scientist reflect on key personal issues illuminated for me by my own divorce 11 years ago. I know the pain she is feeling because I have experienced it. Instead of the call being an interruption to the deadline for this article that is only hours away, it becomes a part of what I am suggesting. Work and relationship flow together. One does not exist without the other. As I complete this sentence, my Golden Retriever comes to my side for a scratch, just to let me know that he is available if I want to spend more time together. I feel full of energy on this beautiful weekend morning because of the time I spent earlier reading and exercising at the health club. Lunch, a nap, and garden work are next. My Saturday time alone only makes the thought of tomorrow’s afternoon reunion with friends and work associates ever more wonderful. The fabric of self-care, work, and relationships is seamless and simultaneous.
A golf professional once taught me this bit of practical wisdom: “How we do anything is how we do everything.” I learned that how I play the game of golf is also how I live my life. We can choose to continue to compartmentalize and fret about time and energy management, intrusive interruptions and unmet expectations; or we can live a life that flows simultaneously from one event to the next as the universe has intended.