Life is filled with choices – coffee or tea, Team Edward or Team Jacob, iPhone or Android. Try going through the day not making a decision and you’ll find that you can’t because choosing not to decide is still a choice (Thank you, Rush! – the band, not Limbaugh) Everything in life comes down to choices.
Time is like money, you get to choose how to spend it. So whether you’re a student, a parent or a human in general, you find yourself tugged in different directions daily as things demand your time. You’re forced to choose between things you need to do (like shower and eat) and things you want to do (like surf or nap). Figuring out what is a need and what is a want is what keeps me on track and something I deal with constantly.
Being a wife, a mother and trying to find time to write brought the question of need vs. want to the forefront. For years, I’d viewed my writing as a want – a hobby I could fit in my day between caring for our son, the house, cooking, errands and working out. But I found the older our son got, the less time I had to write. Weeks or months would pass before I could work on my book. At first I shrugged it off, feeling annoyed at not being able to write. But then I’d feel guilty for wanting to take so much time for myself. I am a mother! I have a child to care for. Writing can wait! But I started to really miss writing and began to consider that maybe writing wasn’t just a hobby. Maybe it was time to move writing from the ‘want’ category over to the ‘need’side of the page.
I had a conversation with my husband about wanting to finish my book and what I needed to make that happen. He’d been aware I’d been struggling to find time to write and was on-board with my decision. What that meant for my family was more leftovers for dinner, a slightly messier house and maybe me missing out on a few family outings so I could write. While it might not seem like much, investing in being a writer when, let’s face it, I hadn’t written or sold a book, was a big leap of faith that I was asking my family to take with me. We were paying in advance for a dream that might not come true.
I’m happy to say everything worked out – I finished the book, landed an agent and a publisher and my first book came out last week justnineshort years after I started writing it! But even if things hadn’t happened that way, I think making writing a priority in my life would have still been the right move because it is something that makes me happy.
We all have so many obligations in life: homework, jobs, household chores, family obligations. When you find something that inspires you, that lights a fire in your soul, you have to honor that. You have to make room for it in your life, give it time and energy. Investing in yourself or your dream will never be time misspent. It will feed your soul. The peace and happiness that brings is priceless.
So, how do you do that? How do you balance the demands of life with chasing your dreams? It comes down to hard work and letting go. Maybe you have to get up earlier in the morning or stay up later at night to find enough hours in the day in order to accomplish what you want. Dreams are never easy, so working hard to accomplish them is required. Staying focused and figuring out how to make it work will pay off if you stick with it long enough.
Letting go sounds counter-intuitive to working hard, but you have to let go of somethings in order to find that balance that you need. Maybe your house is messier than you’d like, or you have to miss a few parties or maybe you have to accept the limitations the other obligations in your life place on your time and work within those parameters. Compromise is the key to finding balance; you have to give up your preconceived notions of what your life or maybe even your accomplished dream look like in order to achieve it. Just like a tight-rope walker, you have to wobble a little to the left and the right in order to stay standing upright and keep moving forward.
I wish my house were neater, I wish I’d finish that blanket I’ve been knitting for a year or have the time to call my friends more. But I accept these things as they are because I know that the time I spend not doing them, I give to my writing which feeds my soul. In acknowledging the choices I have to make for the rewards I will receive, it is easier to make the choices I do. My family and friends accept these things because they know I am happier when I am writing.
Stay focused on your dream, make time for it in your day and work hard to make it happen. Let go of preconceived ideas you have about who you are and what your life should look like. Lean into the wobble as you strike your balance and get across that tightrope one step at a time. You will find your balance and make your dreams come true!