Does this look or feel familiar?
I’m reading a book right now called I Was A Really Good Mom Until I Had Kids. It’s a great book. For all of you that aren’t moms, hang with me here, it has an application.
The book talks about how we are in a constant and continual battle with this thing called BALANCE and its ugly sister GUILT. Mine goes kinda like this…I roll out of bed before daylight to get in a workout before the kids wake up. Get back home before they wake up (gotta be a good mom and be the first face they see, right?). Get them dressed. Forgot to give them a bath (What will the other Moms think, even though they had a bath last night?). Drive them to school. They want to listen to Kids Place Live on XM Radio. I think to myself, ”A good mom would have a meaningful conversation with her kids about something wordly and wise.” I turn it up anyway. I drop them off. Race to the office. Crap, it’s 8:15, and I feel guilty because I’m late. ”Shouldn’t I be the one to set an example for everyone?” OK, you get the picture. And that’s all by 8:15.
My point is this. There is a thing called balance. Balance in work, with our friends, with our families and also with the things we are passionate about. Remember them? They’re called hobbies. And I see it every day. We get out of balance. We swing so hard one way (like working 15 hours a day and not being home before the kids go to bed) or swing another (like thinking that maybe you really could change your career path to running a full time Kool-Aid stand on your neighborhood corner, even when your kids were at school.) Again, you get the point.
I see people getting caught in the same trap with social media. There is a BALANCE. You can’t just go off full throttle into the depths of social media and forget there is that old familiar (and very effective) friend you’ve been neglecting called traditional media. They work together. One balances the other. I struggle with it every day. I tweet, I blog (obviously), I’m on Facebook. I am truly “plugged in.” But I have to admit, before I run out that door in the morning, I still enjoy picking up the newspaper in the driveway and seeing what’s on the front page.
