Life Balance

In considering Rosemarie's post on choosing happiness, it made me think about having balance in life in order to make such a choice. I don't know about our readers, but life just seems to be getting more and more hectic. The long, lazy days of summer seem to end up in the screaming-fast days of autumn. School picks up, 4th quarter work seems to be more intense, community life has more needs, and yet we are called to choose and balance all of it. Then to top it off, the sun goes down a little sooner, making our days seem a bit shorter.



What is the key to life balance? In considering what would "change the face" regarding life balance, I think it deserves some thoughtful consideration. As we look at our days, are they open with opportunity? Or constrained with tasks? I can tell you that I see life as somewhat constrained on a typical day. Yet what about the great inventors who spent hours considering, hypothesizing, and creating new ideas and solutions - was their time constrained? Or did they look at life and work as an opportunity.



I recently uncovered a poem written by a Zen Buddhist that I used to keep near my desk while I was in the hectic corporate world. It seems to sum up "balance" quite well.



The Master in the Art of Living makes little distinction between
his work and his play,
his labor and his leisure,
his mind and his body,
his education and his recreation,
his love and his religion.
He hardly knows which is which.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does,
leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.

To him he is always doing both.


May your days be filled with opportunity and may your friends, coworkers, and family need to decide if you are working or playing!


Questions to Ponder:
What balance do you need in your life right now, today? Can you, and do you, distinguish between work and play? What opportunities are you willing to look at like an inventor to seek a creative solution?

Happiness is a Choice

"People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be." Abraham Lincoln

Looking at life through a child's eyes . . . wouldn't life be different if we could truly do that? Children seem to look for a reason to be happy (okay, I'm choosing not to think about temper tantrums when they don't get what they want!) I'm thinking about the joy a child expresses when someone they love walks in the door, or the excitement they show over petting a horse or seeing a beautiful flower.


It makes me think how much of happiness is really the personal choice to be happy.


I remember one morning not too long ago, during Prayers of the Faithful at daily Mass, a woman I’d never seen before prayed for her son-in-law who was out of work. Her prayer was lovely: “May he be filled with the love of Christ, may he find happiness during this time between jobs and may he have faith that this period will end.” Well, I could not have authored a more apt prayer!

After Mass, she approached me to say “hello”. I couldn’t help myself – I had to tell her about the group that I host in my home on Monday mornings. Our name is “THRIVING Between Jobs” and our purpose is to help people emotionally and spiritually while they are between jobs.

I told her how we pray for each other, both on Monday mornings and during the week, that we realize that these days of unemployment are days of our lives like any other; that we can serve God’s purpose and that we can experience great joy.

We talked about loss – that losing one’s job is not the worst thing that can happen. That there are far worse things than losing one’s home … like losing a child, losing a marriage, losing a spouse, and more.

She was such an inspiration to me. She reminded me that being happy is a choice, just as being miserable is a choice. And the secret to being happy is to embrace an attitude of gratitude. I can’t tell you how many times I have said these very things to my own children, and hearing it again from this woman was so encouraging to me!

Happiness is a choice . . .
Attitude of Gratitude . . .
This moment is a day in our lives, whether we are employed are not . . .

Question to Consider: How can we make the choice to be happy, right now, in this very moment? In what moments are we choosing misery? How is that turning out?

Through a Child's Eyes

Last Sunday at Mass we heard the Gospel regarding seeing life through a child's eyes. Of course, there was more to the gospel than just that, but that was the part that pressed on my heart. My husband and I have just finished gaining custody of our 2 1/2 year old niece Brianna. It has been a long journey and a difficult, emotional one at times, but it all worked out. The day after our court hearing, we traveled back from New York where the baby was, home here to California. On our flight, Brianna was not afraid of the turbulence. Instead, she was excited at the "bumpy clouds" and wanted "more bumpy clouds". This child-like view of life is one I think worthy of writing about.



How many times have we had fear in our lives because we see things through our "experienced" eyes? Our perceptions become so based on our past experiences that we can't see the present moment of the experience. Our perceptions and interpretations become clouded through our positive and negative experiences, to the point that, we can't see the actual moment for what it is. Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now and A New Earth calls this "presence". He describes it as being in the present moment such that you can see the thoughts of your past experience playing through in your mind. One of the things I always try to pay close attention to is the song of the birds outside. I am often keenly aware of when I don't even hear the birds, yet they are singing their song regardless.



Questions to Ponder:
Consider how child-like or adult-like we are in reaction to present moments in our own lives. What would it take for you to be child-like again, to hear the birds as they sing their song of life?