What does it mean to live a balanced life?

To live a balanced life, what usually comes first to your mind is balancing life and work.

However, what does “life” means? Your family or your own private time? Does it include other circles of influence or circles of communication?

Career and family balance

There is no such thing as an ideal balanced life, so don’t follow the conventional media stereotypes.

You know the one where you come home at five from your successful, highly paid job, driving your Volvo car.

You kiss your beautiful wife, take your son to the soccer match, and on your way back, your wife calls and asks you to get her something from the supermarket for your other girl. So you agree and get your wife a present too.

That’s not a balanced life for everyone, and most of the time, it’s not even real.

Who sets the balance?

A successful businessman goes to the gym to work out every day. He calls it a balanced life, but does he call his parents, visit them on the weekend or over Christmas?

Alternatively, a medical resident works 70 hours a week. When he has free time, he prepares for the weekly scientific meeting of his department, and if there is an extra hour left, he studies for the exam.

He has excellent relationships with his colleagues. His girlfriend is a fellow resident, so they see each other every day. They are thinking seriously about marriage after residency.

He might have a balanced life; he is now a resident as he always dreamed of and will marry his sweetheart.

Balancing throughout your life

Life is composed of different life stages: infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.

The problem is that you don’t know exactly when you will die. There are tables for average life expectancy estimates. Maybe your grandparents died at the age of 90. Still, you know that death comes without previous notice.

At times, you give some activities more weight than others, like the medical resident. In this particular time frame, he needs to put more energy into building his medical career. He chose work before freeing up more time for physical exercise or going out with his friends. Maybe after a couple of years, he will regain another balance.

To avoid becoming unbalanced, you should have a threshold line—after which you need to rebalance. If you work nights during the week, then you come home when your kids are asleep, so when they wake up to go to school, you’re sleeping. The threshold then might be that you can’t miss the weekend with them.

How to live a balanced life?

One’s life is a series of snapshots in time, where each has a different balance. The ultimately balanced summation is the final drawing of yourself when the soul leaves the body. It’s only you who sees or can draw this picture, in the end, as it’s your life.

A balanced life should be linked to your personal vision and mission and balance your principles and goals. It’s like walking on a rope. To live a balanced life, you have to make balanced decisions.

Balanced decision-making is a process that uses decision tools to output a balanced decision to fulfill a balanced life.

Conclusion

What you decide determines how you live. To live a balanced life, you first need to define its meaning according to your principles and values—second, start making the right decisions.

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@ashoukry

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