Balance - n. proportion; the harmonious arrangement of parts or elements within a whole.

We’re all juggling assorted stuff in our lives, right? School (if you’re a student), work, family, career, friends, play – the list goes on and on (and believe me, it does!) And sometimes it’s tempting to think that if you can keep at least most of them going well, then things will generally work out.

C’mon, admit it; you’ve thought that at least once or twice I’m sure. I know I did once. But not anymore.

Back in 1974, I took a break from Texas A&M, and for one semester I attended Sam Houston State College, over in Deer Park. Located on the southeast side of town (I lived on the northwest side), it was about an 80-mile round trip from home.

And, for a while during that semester, I took a part-time job at a post office over on the northeast part of Houston. Hey, it paid VERY well for that day and time; at least 3 or 4 times minimum wage (vast wealth to a poor college shmoe like me, I’ll tell ya).

See, on the one hand, there were some great things about that job, the main ones being:

1. Reasonable responsibility – I “opened” the station each morning, taking the bags of mail delivered overnight (the mail was already sorted into separate long bins for each delivery route) and placing them on each mail carrier’s sorting desk for final sorting (each carrier sorted according to how they followed their individual routes).
2. Decent work environment – After only a few days, I managed to get to know my carriers, at least a little bit. Although we didn’t exactly “work together” (I did my thing, then they did theirs), the atmosphere of the station was enjoyable. I’ve had some jobs I hated, just because of the conditions, but this one was no problem at all.)
3. Excellent pay – I already mentioned it was great pay – several times’ what I’d be making at the local burger joint or whatever other minimum wage job available. At the time, wild horses couldn’t keep me from going for that kind of money!
4. Fewer hours – One benefit of working for higher pay was that I didn’t have to work so many hours. Always a plus for a student and strapping young fellow like me! I mean, working hard is acceptable, but working like a slave – well, not so much.

Now, with those things in mind, you’d think I’d have milked that baby for all it was worth, right? (Uh-oh, you know what’s comin’, don’t ya?) Yep; unfortunately, almost immediately I discovered there were a few flies in this particular pie, if you know what I mean. For instance:

1. Working hours – I had to open the Station at 4 am every day, six days a week (I still can’t believe I managed it!) That, of course, meant I had to get up at 3 am, in order to have time to dress, eat and drive there (it was about 20 miles away, and in a different direction from school, which bumped my daily round trip up to nearly 100 miles per day! Luckily gas was only 25 cents a gallon back then!) Which led to…
2. Not enough sleep – As a corollary to the above, I had to go to bed no later than 8 pm to even have a prayer of getting enough rest each night! Notice I didn’t say sleep – I never could get to sleep that early; it was more like about 10-10:30 instead. Of course, this produced…
3. Zombification – After a few weeks of this routine, I could barely function. In fact, if someone from Hollywood had been looking for zombies for a new Night of the Living Dead movie, I’d have been chosen hands down! (Luckily there are no photos; they would only scare the women and children anyway.) But this ended up causing me to…
4. Fall asleep in class – Yep; it finally happened. See, I had to be at class every day at 8 am (M-F that is). And the first class was an Algebra class (don’t ask!), so there was no “sailing through” it. I’d come in, sit down in my seat, and because I could barely keep my eyes open, find myself “jerking awake” (an awful feeling at best) several times during the class. (Good thing I never woke up with magic marker glasses – or worse – drawn all over me.) Which inevitably made me…
5. Wake up in a cold sweat – What finally tripped the “I can’t do this anymore” lever for me was the morning I woke up in class to the sound of the bell – in a drenching, cold sweat. Not only had I no recollection of even arriving at school (much less class), I’d slept through the entire hour! I suddenly realized something: the class bell sounded almost exactly like my alarm clock! No wonder I dreaded that sound every morning! It finally dawned on me: I was conditioning myself to HATE that sound! At least Pavlov’s dogs got a treat when their bell rang.

Ah, well – after about 5 or 6 weeks of this torture (I don’t remember – it’s all a haze anyway), I finally had to quit the job because it was making every other part of my life a mess. Although it was a shame to lose out on the quite substantial cash flow, by then I was ready to cheerfully accept pauper status again, just to be able to sleep relatively normal hours once.

Nope; those big ol’ paychecks just weren’t worth it; my life ended up with no balance whatsoever. And therein lie three simple lessons:

• Money Isn’t Everything. Come to think of it, there are some legitimate times when it’s nothing! No matter how much someone offers you; if you hate the job it ain’t worth it! Trust me on this one, friends; don’t do it!

• Look at the Big Picture. One of the reasons I was going to this particular school was so I could get back to Texas A&M the next semester. See, I didn’t, um, do too well that last semester and decided to live at home and work while I got back up to speed. Unfortunately, although the job paid well, it really, really hindered my goal of, well, actually learning something! I had to step back and refocus on the big picture.

• Balance in All Things. Hey, I was recovering academically (check), making new friends (check), earning some money (check) – in fact, everything was going according to plan. Uh, except for the little niggling detail that one thing – work – was killing all the rest of them! Not good. I discovered, in the hardest way possible, the need to balance them all to have any hope of success. Lucky for me I was teachable!

So, if you find your life out of balance, well, my advice is to sit down and take a hard look at all the things you’re juggling right now. Oh, sure – maybe they’re all important (mine were); critical, even.

But here’s the thing.

Without that one thing – balance – everything else is liable to get all out of kilter, possibly ruining everything! Like I said; you might be tempted to keep on going, thinking that at least most everything else will work out.

But trust me on this one, friends: Search for, and keep, the balance in all things. Hey – manage that, and then you might be amazed at what you can really accomplish!

(Photo credits: Stone balance tower, by gilest; Balancing Act, by Don Fulano)