This post is part of our series Primer to Living the Dream Life
Getting Out of Balance
Yesterday I slept in a bit, snuggled my bed-headed boys awakening from their slumber, and then headed out the door. I was gone for 6 hours organizing for a client. Then I came home, did math and letters with my kids, and spent hours writing this blog in front of a toasty fireplace with friends while Trevor made dinner. Polished off the night with roasting s’mores over the fire with the boys.
I never clocked in and I still haven’t clocked out.
I made personal calls during work hours.
We did academics way past when the bell would’ve sounded at the local elementary school.
We’re living our dream life where work, home, family, and education are intentionally blurred together.
Up until recently, we had bought into the lie of “balanced living” where we had assigned time to different categories of life. Here’s how that looked to me:
- “Work” should happen between 8 am and 5 pm. If I worked more than that, I felt like a workaholic. If I worked less, I felt like a slacker. If I didn’t get in 40 hours per week, I felt obliged to “make it up” on the weekend. As if someone was keeping score. As if I needed to punch the clock to be legitimate.
- Home life should happen in the evenings and on the weekends. If it happened in the middle of the week or day, it felt like an interruption or like I was playing “hookey” from real work.
- Church life should happen on Sunday morning and periodic classes and groups. (There really wasn’t an alternative to this, as everyone else I knew operated on this schedule, too.)
The funny (or tragic) thing is that no matter how much we kept the schedule, color-coded, and balanced things, I always felt “behind.” I always felt like I was failing; like there wasn’t enough time for the things that mattered.
Can you relate? Does everything in your life have an allotted time?
- Week day: Breakfast, commute, work, commute, dinner, homework, practices, collapse. Repeat.
- Weekends: Absolutely everything else. Weeding, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, mowing, swim lessons, more cleaning, errands, events, worship, collapse. Repeat.
Yah, we can relate. Not only were we wrapped in routine; we were smothered in sameness. We were rats running on the hamster wheel of life. We felt pursued by obligation, so we were running hard, striving hard.
………Only to find out that no one was chasing us.
We had to allow the nicely organized apple cart to spill and all the glorious varieties to roll together in a beautiful, fragrant medley.
And now, our life is one of INTEGRATION, rather than an ongoing, disillusioning attempt at “balance.” We are transitioning into human BEings rather than human DOings.
- We now honor taking care of our home and property and ministry center as legitimate work
- We educate our children 24-7; there is currently no stop and start to our school year
- I now get some of my best writing done between the hours of nine to midnight and I don’t feel “put upon” to work late, because our work is now a way we express our purpose!
Not everyone can – or even wants to – live a life that looks like ours. But everyone can stand more FREEDOM in their life. Freedom from the things you think you “have to” do; from the schedules that bind, to the limitations of mind.
Now, finding our way out of The Routine was not easy, because it was so entrenched in our mindset. Here’s how our Exodus from the Everyday happened:
It started with work. I awakened to the fact that work is the primary way we express our assignment. My work as a professional organizer has always manifested my purpose: to restore all that’s out-of-order. But it was more than that. Once I realized that my “day job” was JUST ONE WAY I express my purpose, and that I actually restore in everything I do, I became free.
I realized that when I’m re-envisioning my own home, fixing a broken heart, beautifying our barn, pulling someone into their purpose, or hosting friends and family, I’m on assignment. It’s a joyful, adventurous, fulfilling way to live! It’s our dream life. This one revelation busted down walls; it tore down presupposition; it decimated eight-to-five.
Momentum had begun.
We began to look at life differently. The sanctuary of home became more dear and more accessible all at once. Once we had given ourselves permission to work freely, we began to live freely.
Soon we began to let our faith out of the building and group setting. We awakened to the fact that we are the church! We stopped waiting for heaven and took personal responsibility for bringing heaven to earth.
For us, our voyage into our Dream Life started with REdefining work. For you, it may begin with REdefining your household, your spirit, your health, your finances. The key is setting yourself free from the limitations imposed on you. To apprehend your dream life you must turn in man-made prescriptions like “balance” and “obligation” and trade UP to abundant LIFE!
Thanks for reading along with our Primer to Living the Dream Life series.
Read “Living Your Dream Life Starts With a Dream“
Read “The Key That Unlocks the Dream Life”
Read “Reclaiming Learning”
