The answer is simple:

Twerk is life…thus there is no balance…there is only twerk.

Now, if only work were twerk, which for some people it is and I envy those people…oh how I envy them. Their booties shaking in the air as though they were without care.

But, unfortunately, I don’t get paid to twerk…not anymore.

Derived from the Latin Workenius for belabored pony, work has, as long as history has been recorded, been hard.

Harder still is finding the balance between “work” and the rest of your “life”. (Life is in quotes here since I can only assume ghosts still read blogs and I don’t want to be insensitive)

The struggle for “work life balance” is a tale as old as time itself. All roads lead to Rome? More like all roads lead to figuring out how to get this aqueduct built and still find time to check out the new gladiator fights with Maximus.

#amiright?

But, in all seriousness. Finding balance between work and life is really hard for me. I am an actor and, if I say so myself, a creative person. I also work a full time job (which I love) that can ask a lot of my time…and even when it doesn’t take time from me it cant take up mental real estate which is, at my age, limited.

When that happens I have to give up some time from the other things that make me happy. Here is a list of those things, in no specific order:

My wife, cooking, reading, writing, acting, playing games with my friends, playing games alone, thinking, thinking out loud, cheering on my local sports team (From Green bay), eating, eating, and finally, eating.

Get it? Maybe a visual will help, please see exhibit A below:

On the left we have “lack of work life balance” you can clearly see the sadness embodied in the tear in my eye and the rain cloud obviously is a metaphor for…rain. Not a pretty sight, huh?

On the right we have “Work life balance en full”. Look at the sun, it’s got shades on. It’s happy. I’m rocking a sweet hat and kicking sweet tricks off a ramp on my board. That is what a positive work life balance looks like.

Honestly, though. It’s incredibly hard to balance your life and your job. Especially when you care about what you do and how you do it. You tend to give more of yourself than is healthy and often that leads to all aspects (work and life) suffering. Work/Life balance is not just important to overall happiness but to overall success as well.

Lately, the past few months to be specific, I’ve not had that balance and I can tell things aren’t as good as they could be. Both at work and in the other aspects of my life. I’m not cooking, or writing, I don’t have as much energy…I’m just stressed out and generally not as happy as I’d like to be.

I’ve been so busy with work and travel that Stax and I haven’t even done our “Two things a week to make sure we’re not old and lame”.

There’s got to be a better way! (I yell as I throw a pot of boiling water and pasta on the floor, cross my arms and look towards the camera)

To quote a colleague, I need to find the middle way. And I’m working on it. I want to be that guy on the skateboard…not that sad dude under the rain cloud.

So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going schedule time for fun. That’s right. I’m going to schedule time for fun and I’m going to force myself to have it. If I don’t then I won’t and so I can’t…you dig?.

It seems counter productive to having an enjoyable time if you have to plan it, or at least that’s my gut feeling. I just know that these things are so important to my overall happiness and success that if I don’t force myself to make time then I’ll never make time and in the end, I’ll never find that balance.

The Blob