The author James Patterson once said,
“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls… are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered”.
It is easy to get one of the four balls out of balance, and treat the most important of the balls as work…trust me, I get it…I’ve been there!
How much of your time are you spending working? Maybe you think “Oh my family will always be there; they understand. Or you may even think “This is for the short-term, things will even-out soon”. Stop kidding yourself; they won’t even-out if you don’t deliberately make that decision to invest in them.
A plant that is deprived of sunlight and nutrients dies. So too do relationships with both yourself and others when they are neglected.
Yes, as educators or people working with a greater sense of purpose, it is easy to give your all to your work. But, there needs to be balance. There needs to be life outside of work; relationships outside of work; your beautiful, amazingly talented self nourished outside of work.
And so I ask you, what balls are you expecting to bounce? Which may already be nicked or even shattered? What are you doing to polish them up again?
