For years I've had people tell me that I need to say "no" more, that I need to find balance, and that I need to not work so much. I've been trying to figure out what that all means. To me, it sounds like people are saying that something I'm doing isn't working, that there's a better way to be in the world, and that I need to work less. Usually folks are telling me these things around the same time that they're asking something from me. It goes like this, "Megan, will you do X?" "Love to, but can't. I'm already booked at that time." "You're so busy!" "Am I?" "Yes, don't you ever say no?" The subsequent conversation that ensues in my head looks like this, "Ya, I just did to you, and now you're saying I'm unbalanced."
I think that I'm just now seeing the twinkle of what balance means, and that it doesn't mean the same thing for everyone.
Balance for me is not two hours watching Netflix after work. Balance for me is not throwing myself down a mountain on two wheels because everyone else does. Balance for me is neither enforced boredom nor enforced challenges. I strove to fill time with things so that I wasn't bored, and then strove to empty space so I wasn't stressed.
What I've learned is that I need to take a longer lens than 24 hours or 7 days for balancing.
This means that sometimes it looks like I'm frantically busy with a million things on the go, throwing balls in the air, and breathing in with some near misses, and sometimes like I sleep a lot and read a lot and wander in the woods a lot. Sometimes it means that I'm really calm, and feel pretty great about the world, and sometimes it means that I'm sobbing sitting on the edge of the tub holding my head in my hands.
The difference, I've learned, is that it isn't about what I'm doing, or when I'm doing it, or how much I'm doing it. It's about being authentic in what I need to be doing right then, and being right there when it happens.
I strive to do less sometimes. I strive to do more of some things at some times. I strive to do the right things at the right time. And overarchingly, I come back to what makes me feel like I'm authentically being me.
Somehow balance got wrapped up in schedules, and calendars, and apps, and this weird oneupmanship about who is busier. Somehow balance lost the sense of me, and being me, and being me right now.
As a wise woman once told me, "No is a complete sentence." This is true. And sometimes "Yes is a complete sentence too."
