Wisdom for 2024: Balance is not Practical

Insert Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:5–8 (NIV)        

"A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,          

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,  

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,  

a time to tear and a time to mend,  

a time to be silent and a time to speak,      

a time to love and a time to hate,    

a time for war and a time for peace."           

"It is in rhythm that design and life meet." Philip Rawson

Wisdom for 2024: Balance is not practical, rhythm is.

A rhythm approach is more practical than trying to maintain balance because it explicitly considers our current seasons and life stages. A person in the middle of career building has a different life rhythm from a retired person or a university student. This is obvious, but actually considering your life stage is crucial to forming a practical pattern for living well. 

Rhythmic living considers what time of year it is. Vacations should reflect a slower rhythm than the breakneck pace of getting a new product out the door under a tight deadline. A rhythm model embraces the practical dynamics of the regular cycles of life. 

When we try to balance our lives without regard for the time of the year or month, we only frustrate ourselves. Holidays, final exams, play-offs, summer breaks, weekends, Mondays, and Fridays each carry their own distinct rhythms. Flowing with them gives us a more realistic and better life.

Farmers innately grasp seasons. They do not balance cultivating with harvesting in the same season—that would be foolish and impossible. Instead, they do what each season uniquely calls for. Some of our insane busyness comes from trying to cultivate, plant, fertilize, harvest, and repair the fences in every season. We are not meant to live that way. Rhythm frees us to focus on one season at a time.

Singleness, marriage, parenting—each human season entails a unique way to live during that time. If a woman tries to live the same kind of life during pregnancy as she did before she was pregnant, she will only frustrate herself. New parents comment with surprise, "I don't know what we used to do with all our time before we had children!" What might appear balanced in one stage does not make sense in another stage.

Ready to learn how to live your life in rhythm? Click here.