People frequently say that life is all about balance. We have to balance things, and we have to have balance ourselves. Most often we hear the example of juggling. We have these things up in the air: school, work, family, church or play, and we have to keep them balanced. Or what? If you’re juggling, and you lose track of one thing in particular, likely you will drop that thing. It will fall to the ground, and maybe you just wind up neglecting it all together as you continue to juggle. Or, maybe dropping that one thing makes you nervous and you wind up dropping everything. Or, perhaps you have to pause all of your proceedings while you pick it up and keep going. However you look at it, the imagery only extends to the failure of a task: one facet of your daily duties.
I have discovered my own preferred metaphor: walking a tightrope. Now, I’m not claiming this is a new idea at all. I just wish to argue that for me, in my brain, it works better than thinking of jugglers. If you lose your balance on a tightrope, you don’t drop a thing, you fall. You do. Not school, or work, or friendships. You. And you are the one who has to find a way to get back up again. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found it much easier to drop a class and take it later, or catch up at work, or renew a friendship when I’m not falling apart myself. To me it doesn’t matter what I’m juggling. Balance isn’t just about juggling responsibilities. We must have balance within ourselves to move forward, to succeed.
I suppose if you were really attached to the juggling tasks idea, you could combine the two. Because there are thousands of jugglers out there, and I wouldn’t want to discredit your methodology. So juggle away, but remember you are always on the wire, and if you don’t have balance yourself, it won’t matter how good you’ve gotten at multi-tasking, or scheduling, or prioritizing your activities.
