Balance
We have been talking about eating nutritious meals and exercising. The topic of this week’s Writer’s Quotes Wednesday challenge is balance. Balance has many meanings and is broad enough to give you a lot of ways to go with it.
It may simply be the challenge of staying upright while walking on a tightrope, paying your bills and coming out with money still in the account, eating from all the right food groups, or holding one or more babies on your hips without dropping them.
We just watched the movie “Adrift,” a true story in which a storm caused a sailboat to lose its balance. Children should have a well-balanced education which includes physical education, art, music, science, social studies, literature and time and ways for exploring their interests.
Artists balance colors to make a beautiful painting. Music lovers enjoy a balance of types of music. Readers read a balance of fiction and non-fiction.
Architects design buildings that will be balanced and create a sense of beauty and balance in the city. All of us balance the hours in our day.
These photos were all from a weekend trip I took to San Francisco with a good friend in May, 2013. We balanced work, family, and still managed to get a girls weekend out.
Where is balance leading you this week?
My Response to Quotes
“I have the feeling that in a balanced life one should die penniless. The trick is dismantling.”
Art Garfunkel
My grandmother told me when she neared the end of her life that it was so hard to figure out how much money she might need to make it through life. She lived through the Great Depression and pinched pennies all her life. A few years before my grandparents retired they invested all their savings in Certificates of Deposits which earned two digit interest. It wasn’t a fortune, but she could have been very comfortable.
Yet when the car needed new tires to replace unsafe bald ones, she wouldn’t purchase them because she was afraid she might run out of money. I understand her fears but I am trying to be a little more balanced as I age and dismantle as I go.
Unlike Art, I don’t want to die penniless because I want to leave something to our son and other family members who might need it.
“The critical part of a balance in life is choosing priorities. If you are trying to balance a family and a career, the choices are complex because both are important.”
Byron Pulsifer
Graduation from high school marks the entrance into adulthood and a time for choices. For some it is time to start work in a family business or at a first job. For others a time to finish education, and for others time to start a family. Some people put off family to build a career, and others put off the career to raise a family. Others balance both successfully.
We all make choices each day to keep our lives balanced. We save money so we can retire, or we don’t and we work until we drop. Or we don’t work hard, don’t stress and when we get old we have start working with no skills or rely on others when emergencies arise. We stress about everything or we stress out others.
Some of us have our lives balanced enough we retire early so we can work or play at something we have always dreamed of doing if only we had the time. A few of us super balanced souls work because it is what we love to do. We are writers, race car drivers, photographers, artists, mechanics, bakers, realtors, teachers, fitness experts, nurses, consultants, clothes designers, own our own business, law, medical or dental practice. We balance and adjust our lives to fit the schedules we have etched out.
We upsize, downsize, and right-size our lives, our belongings, our homes, our social lives, our giving, even our community service so that our lives stay in balance.
How to Play #WQWWC
Have fun with this topic and some quotes and expound in words, pictures or both. Feel free to use the logo in your post, or as a widget in your sidebar.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
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