Just read.

A balanced life. What is a balance life to me? How do you define a balance life? How do you know that the life that you are living is balance?

Does having a stable job and a family means you have a stable life?

Or must you have a highly paid job to have a balance life?

Some people define a balance life as in having a decently paid job and a happy family. It means you go to work in the morning with a smiling face, and you leave your office in the evening, well, with a smiling face! You are happy with your job, and your job is happy with you. Doh!

Then you go home to your happy family. Have house-cooked dinner, do all the lovey-dovey stuff with your family. Opps…did I mentioned family here means your wife and your kids?

Walk the dog.
Bring the kids out to McDonalds.
Bring wife to shopping complexes.
Watch movie.
Read the newspaper.
Read a book.
Et cetera.

Then go to sleep and repeat the same thing all over again tomorrow.

Well, not too bad though, but a little bit routine. To some people, this is a balanced life. You are happy with your job. You have a happy family. Not much problem. Sleep well. Eat well. All is well.

What about my definition of balanced life? To me, just to put it simple and straight to the point, a balance life let you plan your work according to your lifestyle, not planning your lifestyle according to your work.

I’ve read a book, entitled 101 Copy Cat Marketing, and it has one of the best quotation that I’ve ever heard, albeit it’s a simple one. It says, “To plan your work around your golf, rather than to plan your golf around your work.”

This quotation really inspired me and I think it’s fabulous. I wouldn’t say it balances my life. But certainly, in these kind of situation, I will have control of my own life, and I will definitely be able to balance my life.

I can decide what I want to do, and do what I want to do. Not to do what other people want us to do.

More too often I find that people do not actually have a say in their life. It’s funny how people succumb to this kind of living and they find it acceptable. Is it because everyone is living like this, and so they think it is normal to live like this?

Ouch!

I find it so sad to live in such condition. It’s a zone of living that we call “Comfort Zone”. You are comfortable with what you are having right now. A stable job. A stable income every month. Problems free.

I am someone who wants to live my life the way I want to live. Just to quote Jon Bon Jovi,

“"It's my life, It's now or never, I ain't gonna live forever, I just want to live while I'm alive."

A balanced life to me is a life where you do what you want to do, and you are happy doing it. Yes! That includes if you think that the routined life I mentioned earlier is what you want to do, and you are happy doing it, then you are living a balanced life.

Everyone has a different mission in their life. How they want to live their life. How they want to go about with their life. So to me, there’s no definite definition of a balanced life. However, there are definitely a definition for imbalanced life.

Imbalanced life is when you are too focussed on something that it basically takes over your life. Imagine working 24/7. Bringing your work home to do at night is already bad enough, let alone doing it on the weekend! Don’t these people have life?

I’m not totally against working. Just that I found out that if you don’t do something, one day, the work is going to consume you.

If you don’t do something, and just continue to work, one day your work will become so indespenseable. You will reach a state where you could not afford to lose your job! I am very sure that a lot of people out there are facing this dilemma where they can’t afford to lose their job, even for one month.

Reasons?

Commitments – family, bills, car loans, house loans, kids’ education, bills, expenses, bills, and more bills. Did I mention bills?

The more commitments you have, the more indespenseable your work become. Even losing it for one month, you might risk losing your car, your house, whatever. You might even lose your mind! Or you might as well lose your life.

It’s even worse if you are in your mid-life. Losing your job is as good as losing your life. Your chances of finding another employment is harder than finding the needle in the hay. Ok, it’s a little exxagerated. You might still get a job, but it’s tough. Really tough. And you might end up as a security guard.

It’s a truth. It’s the horrible truth. Yes, we are still young, and there is not a need to think that far. But, when the need arises for you to think, it’s too late. You are already a security guard.

So, what is a balanced life? To me, a balanced life is when you are doing what you love to do. When monetary issues are not issues at all.

You plan your work around your golf, and not your golf around your work.

When you have that kind of freedom, you can balance whatever you want to balance.

Doh.