Have you ever seen a performance on TV, or maybe at a circus, where there’s a man spinning plates on tall sticks? It’s quite a trick! If he doesn’t pay attention to all of them at the same time – one or more will surely go crashing to the ground.
With our busy lives, isn’t it the same for all of us? We’re in a daily struggle to keep all of the areas of our lives running smoothly so that nothing “breaks” from too little attention. Our “plates” are our families, jobs, homes, school, health, leisure, and of course our blogs!
Some days, it’s really hard to keep all those plates spinning! There are times when one of them seems to be wobbling a little more than the others and we want to shift our focus to just that one. The problem is when we take our eyes off of the rest of the plates – they all begin to wobble, too, and then we feel as if we’re running in circles, trying to keep everything going.
I don’t pretend to know the answers, but I sure would like to figure it out. How can we pay attention to all of the important areas (the plates) in our lives at the same time? One solution would be to eliminate a plate or two if possible, but you may say that ALL of yours are necessary. Another idea might be to rotate the plates – so that they all have a chance to spin, but not necessarily at the same time, or on the same day! They could be organized into “groups” according to importance. The family plate is important and has to spin every day, but laundry does not. So you could decide which “less important” plates to add to the daily spin. I think we sometimes get into the habit of thinking we have to do it all at the same time. Instead of trying to keep 8 plates going every single day, maybe having just 4 or 5 in a changing mix of categories would work.
Hmmmm, maybe that’s it! Certain plates spin on certain days! By the end of the week they’ve all had attention – but it was easier to deal with them in small groups than to try and keep the entire bunch going all at once.
I‘ll work on it and get back to you! 😉
In the meantime, what do you do to keep the things in your life balanced? 🙂
