
I don’t. End of blog thanks for coming today.
Jokes. However, the statement of me not achieving balance is true. Balance is a moving target that is unobtainable if you are juggling multiple things.
As many of you know, last week was our General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Within that conference, there was a specific talk that addressed this very issue. That talk was given by one of my favorite church figures… Dieter F. Uchtdorf.
In this talk, Elder Uchtdorf talked about balance. That the best way to achieve balance is by first adhering to the priciples of the Gospel. “How to distribute your time and energy among your many important tasks will vary from person to person and from one season of life to another. But our common, overall objective is to follow the Way of our Master, Jesus Christ, and return to the presence of our beloved Father in Heaven. This objective must remain constant and consistent, whoever we are and whatever else is happening in our lives.”
I feel this in my life. If I were to achieve a true “balance,” giving everything the equal amount of attention, something would be getting insufficient attention. As has been stated, I have a lot of irons in the fire. For this example we will talk about my role as a husband and my hobby/passion project/business of podcasting. In a true balance, I would pay equal attention to podcasting AND being a husband. Obviously, if I paid the same attention to both of these things, one wouldn’t get the attention it deserved… my role as a husband.
So instead, I focus on using the word “harmony.” Harmony among all of the things in my life. Prioritizing my time and effort to those things which are most important to me. In this season of life, my main focus is on my personal relationship with my Creator, my role as a husband, my relationship with my kids, and my “town job” as a pharmacist… in that order. Everything else will be taken care of when those four things are fulfilled.
Let me use another way to explain this in the wise words of the late Dr. Steven Covey.
The best way to fit all of the “rocks” into your life is to make sure the big ones get in first. Then the smaller ones may still fit in the spaces not taken up by the bigger ones. If we reverse this and put the smaller ones in first, then the largest rocks will never fit.
This is not to say that the smaller rocks are not important…. they most definitely are as they wouldn’t be in your life otherwise. So to make sure you get ALL of the important things fit into your life, you must prioritize and make room for the big ones first.
I hope you are enjoying the shift in my blog to a more faith based perspective. For me, this is a way I can fit a big rock (my faith and missionary work) in with a small rock (writing) in my jar of life. I hope each one of you can take something away from these messages as they are very personal and heartfelt.
To keep up with all news on Ag State of Mind, go to this link and sign up for our weekly newsletter.