Balanced VS Beneficial

So many times I have written about finding balance. Balance apparently is supposed to be the ultimate goal for a happy life. Well sometimes it falls short of it's promises. See Daniel's blood sugar pie chart from last week? That is one pretty balanced pie but not really beneficial. Maybe it is all in how one looks at things. Is balance an equal part of all pieces or is it the fine line dead center of everything? In reality both ideas are balance, just with different results. In the case of diabetes, a solid gray chart would be balance, the dead center of all things blood sugar.

When it comes to running my home, equal parts of all the pieces would be a beautiful balance. The actual balance in my home, and so many others like it, is more like one person is in the center holding up the teeter-totter as it sways up and down from each side. Both of these bring about a balance but with very different results. You know, sanity VS insanity.

The Pink bear is learning how to balance her life and the lessons that are coming out of it are interesting. She is learning that when you are trying to juggle more than one priority, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Often if you find yourself overwhelmed you have to pull back on one thing in order to make breathing space to get back on track. The problem with this is that if it is in your life, there is a very good chance that it is tied to everything else in your life. How do you choose which strings to untie?

The hidden variable in all of this is what? Emotions. Everything seems to be driven by how we feel about it and this makes it very difficult to untie anything. You see, just like Daniel's pie chart, it all seems good and balanced but it is reaking havoc. For Daniel, at school they let him run higher because they are scared of lows, at home we run tighter because I am scared of long term complications, and where it all meets in the middle is where he should be all of the time. Every decision made is made out of an emotion, such as fear, love, or frustration, all seem necessary but as you see not very beneficial. The scenario of running our household is that way too. It is best if everyone chips in and all of the work and worry, fun and frolic is shared by all of the members. It very often is more like mom is in the middle with all of the weight on her shoulders balancing for every one else because she is driven by emotion. Mama bear knows Pink bear has a lot on her plate and really doesn't need extra weight at the moment. She feels she needs to protect Big Blue and not let him carry anymore than he has to so as to keep him safe from the wrath of MS. She allows the cubs to believe they are carrying a bit of the weight so they can learn that later they will need to but you know she has her hand under the scale, it is just what Mama bears do. To her it seems balanced and necessary but it is not very beneficial. The Pink bear is driven by emotions too, she can't untie anything because of how she feels. School is not optional, it must stay on the scale. Band is her passion, her future, she can't let it go. Her job is affording her the freedom she doesn't have time for and financing her ventures. Her boyfriend is probably the most optional but she also feels he is her only escape from everything else. She has very strong feelings about all of these things so her life chart ends up looking very much like her little blue brother's blood sugar pie, you guessed it....balanced but not beneficial.

So maybe instead of being so hung up on the idea that everything needs to be so dad-blasted balanced, we spend more time and effort focusing on making sure what we do is beneficial for us and those we love.