Episode 45 - Finding Balance in a Hectic World cover art

Episode 45 - Finding Balance in a Hectic World

Episode 45 - Finding Balance in a Hectic World

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 In today's episode, host Jerrid Kalakay takes us on a journey into the concept of balance and how it applies to his life. Is balance possible? We have all heard the phrase "work/life balance," and is it possible what other types of balance do we truly need for the long-term. Jerrid proposes thinking about balance as different seasons and what is necessary for our lives for each season.   Transcript   Jerrid Kalakay 0:09 Welcome to the Teaching Change podcast, where we explore issues social entrepreneurship, education, and innovation. I'm your host, Jerrid Kalakay. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about finding balance. What does that mean? How does someone go about finding balance? And is it even possible? So on a previous episode, we talked about basically recharging your batteries, and understanding the need to restore oneself to stay in the game for the long haul. And the finding balance everyone talks about work-life balance. Jerrid Kalakay 0:46 Is that a real existence? Is that even possible? You know, the thing that's difficult about finding balance is what are you finding balance with? So a lot of times people talk about their personal life Jerrid Kalakay 0:59 and the Jerrid Kalakay 1:00 Their work-life, you know, and then balancing the two or balancing one's family life with their friends' life, or balancing your work life with your family, friends, personal growth, all those kinds of things. Jerrid Kalakay 1:18 I think it's a work in progress for pretty much everyone I don't know if anyone has would say, honestly, they found complete balance because it's, it's an ever-moving target, right? Jerrid Kalakay 1:31 You feel like you're doing pretty well. And then you get thrown a curveball. Jerrid Kalakay 1:37 You feel like you're on top of the world, and then all of a sudden you backslide, or tumble down the front of the hill, all the way down to the bottom. And so it's kind of a constant struggle, a continuous battle to try to figure out where is your balance and where can it be I know for me in my life as a professor as a social entrepreneur. Jerrid Kalakay 2:00 As a father, as a husband, as a son balance is ever elusive, many times, I'm trying to continually figure out what's the right amount of work to put in here, whether it be in my personal life or whether it be in my work life, whether it be my, my academic life, so forth and so on. And I think that it's probably a healthy conversation to have with yourself, not only with yourself but also with your family, with your friends, if you have a partner, so forth to really try to figure out what, what right now and this exact stage of my life, what does balance look like? What could balance look like? Jerrid Kalakay 2:41 And I don't know if it's, I don't think it's going to be a perfectly balanced thing. Like I'm looking, I'm thinking about a seesaw, you know, and I'm, I'm looking for, you know, what point is a seesaw utterly horizontal with the ground. Very rarely have I ever in my life and all the playgrounds that I've taken my kids Jerrid Kalakay 3:00 too, and probably all the playgrounds I've ever gone to as a child myself, have I ever seen a seesaw exactly horizontal with the ground? Jerrid Kalakay 3:10 And so using that as a metaphor for life, is it possible to have a perfectly balanced life to have your work? Have your academics or your extracurricular activities, your clubs, your organizations, the things you do on the weekends, your family? All the requirements that go along with with having a family and so forth is is it ever going to be a possibility that it's going to be perfectly balanced? Jerrid Kalakay 3:39 I don't think so. I think the answer to that question is no. And the reason why I say that is because I believe at certain times, it naturally should not be in balance ultimately, right. You've got a deadline and work, and so that's probably going to, you know, coming up that's going to be it's going to take a little bit more energy from you. Jerrid Kalakay 3:57 One of your children gets sick if you are fortunate. Jerrid Kalakay 4:00 have to have kids, or we know one of your dogs or animals get sick or your partner gets sick, or you get sick, then you know, obviously that's going to take energy away from your work. Jerrid Kalakay 4:12 If you're pursuing if you're on a softball league or you're in a bowling league, or you know anything like that, if something goes wrong with that, and you're having a tough season or tough go of it, that might take more energy to try to try to remedy that situation try to get better at whatever it is you're trying to do. Right. And so I think it's natural to kind of oscillate between projects and activities and things that you're doing. And not necessarily be super caught up with everything has to be 5050, you know, exactly even across the board or 3333 33 and don't forget about the third and each one of those. Jerrid Kalakay 4:50 That's probably not a healthy way to do things. ...
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