Balance
I’m 41. Bryan is 42. We are quickly approaching middle-age. As much as I cringe at that word – the fun part is making servers guess how old I am and cackle hysterically when they say 32 or 33. Yes, I understand they are undercutting to pad their tip, the point is: I DON’T CARE. THEY SAID THIRTY-TWO, YOS.
When you stare down the other half of your life, you also start looking back. Bryan and I have been talking about this a lot. How can we make it work better? All this. How can we find balance? When have we done it well? When have we been total assholes? Living a full life without burning out. Spending time with our family, friends – but still finding fulfillment at work and other creative pursuits.
It’s damn hard.
Being in the social media space allows you to meet people, lots of people. Here in Denver and Boulder we have a vibrant community, who come in all shapes and sizes… and ages.
We hang out with people 20 years older than us, and 20 years younger than us. OK, maybe more of the youngers, because there are more of them.
The point is, as we look around, we see friends struggling with the same things we struggled with then, and we help them when we can.
Monika, who can read my mind half the time, has been going through a career change lately. She had to sit down and really think through what she wanted, what was best for her, which direction she should go – so we talked. OK, mainly we texted, but we texted a lot. She listened, really listened, took it in, and – of course, as she should – found her own path. But I felt like I gave her some valuable insight from a been-there-done-that perspective.
Jeremy likes to call me his big sister. So, when he was up for a job interview, he messaged me a photo of him, all dressed up like an adult and stuff. “How is this?” I didn’t blow off the question with sarcasm, because it touched my heart that he trusted me enough to ask. I poked around about the job, and then replied, “You look perfect.” He got the job.
Andy is 30, and has been really working in his field since he was 15, when he started playing in bands. He co-founded Flobots and now is back with his original band, Bop Skizzum. Yes, I have mentioned Andy a lot recently, because we are hanging out like crazy – working on social media and tech stuff for the band. Andy is a nut, but I know he adores me. Why? Because he introduces me to most people as his “mother that had me at a really inappropriate age.”
The point is, I think we’ll be writing about this a bunch more. Yes, I mean we. I am going to get Bryan to climb out of his shell and write regularly here, on Greeblemonkey, because this topic is one he is passionate about. I may even have some of the young ones guest post. Or you guys – if you have things to say?
I really think it will turn into a sidebar section, or maybe something more – where we can just toss around ideas for handling those life things we all struggle with, over and over again.
Sound good?
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Love this idea! I could totally use tips in this area.
Exactly. As I get older, I look back on things I did well, things I wish I had done differently. I also like to talk to my younger cousin to hear new perspectives – it;s always good to keep learning!
I really love this idea, and so value my own multi-generational community. I’ll be looking forward to reading more about how this manifests in your world.
Brilliant! Look forward to it!
Love the idea. I’ve been working toward building an integrated life I can love, and this is the sort of thing I would truly dig.
Balance really is the key ingredient to life, and since life is always changing, so is the balance. Before I moved to LA I felt amazing about my life–I was acting, doing stand-up, doing post-production, and having the time of my life with my girlfriend.
Then I moved to LA and everything was thrown up in the air, leaving me looking up into the sun trying to blindly catch everything I had such a firm grasp on.
It’s been a year since I moved, and things have gotten better, but I still feel very far away from where I want to be. Sometimes I get so caught up in the destination that I forget about the every day pleasures that make me happy.
And everybody is in a different spot–some have their dream job but no family–other have the opposite. It’s hard to prioritize what we want while maintaining what we have.
The easiest thing to do is compare yourself to others, which is my biggest flaw as of late (maybe that’s just LA chiseling it’s rat race into my brain though). I recently wrote a little about the challenge of not comparing myself to everyone, and it made me feel a lot better about the pent up emotion I had. Here’s the post. http://bit.ly/oILgmV
Writing, sharing, and talking about it is the best way to absorb our challenges and help clarify solutions to them. Thanks for posting about this topic–let’s keep sharing with one another!
Yes, good.
I’m sure I have something to contribute to this topic, being that I’m 36 & not that far behind you. I think about this stuff A LOT these days. So stay tuned for an email w/ a potential guest entry in it…
I love this idea, and am terrified about contributing to it. We talk about this with friends and family all the time, but putting it down into coherent prose is all new for me.
I’m looking forward to the growth that I’m sure will come, and isn’t that part of this theme, too?