Follow your bliss, and doors will open where there were no doors before.
~ Joseph Campbell
Timing is everything. It just helps to know where you are at what time – and many of us don’t. That’s where the problem lies.
When I began to conceptualize the idea of what I now call ego-RHYTHM™ I was driven by one thought: I had grown tired of waiting for things to be great.
As you’ve seen in previous blogs, my life was one of highs and lows. I would conquer one major obstacle only to find the next one creeping up on me. Eventually, I realized there might be something larger at work that I did not understand, and I needed to make sense of it all.
I couldn’t accept that life was only about overcoming obstacles. There had to be a way to put some logic into our path through it. What’s more, I wanted to enjoy my journey. I wanted to have everything, which for me means family, love, career, money and health.
Complaining, rationalizing, feeling grumpy and ever-exhausted? I was over it. There had to be a way to find out how I could achieve most, if not all, of my goals. I wanted to be fulfilled and happy. But how could I be both?
I first looked to the men that I had worked with; they seemed overall less frazzled and stressed than the women I knew. These men don’t seem to choose if they want one thing or another. They automatically go for “everything.”
Somehow men know when it is time to find a mate and set up a family. Do men even think about wanting and having it all? In my experience, men consider it their birthright to have it all, and don’t give such a thing a second thought. Hardly any man loses sleep over whether he should get married, be a dad, and have a career.
No – on the contrary, a man believes he will be a great provider, a good father and a loving husband. While many men wish they could spend more time with their children, there is traditionally and historically no inherent emotional conflict that forces them to set a family or career priority one way or another.
But for women there still is. Compared to how it once was for our mothers and grandmothers, we women have come far in a short period of time. But we’re not fools. We know that a woman’s liberty to pursue happiness still seems to come at a steep price. The definitions of what that price is are ours to make.
We need to liberate ourselves from the guilt and the stress that we carry within about wanting and having it all.
Have you struggled with similar decisions in your life – whether to start a family (or when to start one), how you can balance work and home? Tell me about your challenges here – they can help us all grow and move forward. Thanks!