Journal O Ram

BALANCE IS A JOURNEY NOT A DESTINATION

Lot of people talk about work life balance. I think, work is part of life. So, it is not that you are balancing between work and life. It is that you are balancing life itself. When we say balancing life it includes balancing work, family, health, wealth, prosperity, progress, safety, risk and the whole host of things we can think of. I think it is all put together to give a holistic view of Life.

How do we balance.
We can balance by doing many things at the same time focusing on one thing at a time. How is that possible. It is natural for humans. For instance, we do multiple things naturally, breath, think, see, listen, act, react etc. If you notice all these are running in parallel. But at any point in time there is a focus on one particular activity. For instance, during Pranayama, your focus is on breathing. When you are exercising, your focus is on the physical strength of the body part you are working on. When you are eating you are focused on your food. When you are watching a movie you focus on the movie, synchronizing the voice and visual.

There by, to balance the several things in life, one need to have patience to start, act and complete the activity. For instance, when you want to bring balance by spending time with your family, spend it with the primary focus on family. In the modern work culture, work from home is part of life. So, when one is working from home, the focus should be on work, though you may have a reason to work from home and that becomes the second priority. Similarly, if you are handling an important role in an organization and can not be away from work activities. Or if nature of your work demands your attention most of the time, then when you are on a vacation, one must be available to attend and preferable make arrangements for backup. So, that only minimal attention or minimal or no time of your vacation is used for work. This way, one is focused on vacation and thoroughly enjoying the vacation. At the same time, when one is back to work after vacation, the focus is again at work. This leads to prioritizing the tasks at hand.

When it comes to prioritizing, it needs a lot of discipline. It reminds me of our school days. during our schooling, we have 7 sujbects.
Telugu (Prose and Poetry)
Hindi (Prose and Poetry)
English (Prose, Poetry and Non-detail)
Social (History, Geography, Economics and Civics)
Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology)
Mathematics and
Moral Science.
Apart from this we also have one PT (Physical Training and not play time) period per week.
We also have one SUPW (I don't remember the abbreviation for this). The abbrreviation as I Rajesh reminds me is that it is Students yoUthful Productivity Work. I know it is a fun period on Friday afternoon last period. It is for singing, music and fun activities.

We have 7 periods in a day with 4 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. There is a lunch break, there are morning interval and evening interval, each coming after two consecutive periods.

Exams used to be 1st Unit Test, 2nd Unit test, Quarterly, 3rd Unit test, Half Yearly, 4th Unit Test and Final exams. All this in just 9 months with three months in a year, overall going for vacation.

There are also school events like sports day, teachers day, children's day, inter school competitions, picnics too.

Imagine, as kids each one of us did it for 10 years achieving so much in the time span in a very systematic way. And if you ask, majority of the people would say that "school days are the most enjoyable days or the best days in life!" Think of it, why is it so??

It is because we balanced life in the most efficient way and thus we enjoyed every moment of it and we relish on those memories for a life time.

When one is able to continuously prioritize the tasks / activities balance is possible. Balance is like slow cooking or like delivering a baby. It requires the due time that is needed to achieve balance. It is a continuous process or rather a never ending process because balancing life is required all through ones life. Balancing life is for a life time. It is a journey and not a destination. If that is the case, then where are the results / fruits in Balancing life. The fruits / results in balancing life are in that very instant. They are in each and every moment one balances life. And according to me, those are the moments, in which one is actually living life.

Balance is enjoyment!
Balance is results!
Balance is completeness!
Balance is Living!
Balance is Life!

Idea:
Like I mentioned sometime earlier in one of my previous, Idea of "Rama Koti". Because it is difficult in our busy life style, my friend Sridhar has given an idea we can do nama smarana instead of writing "Rama Koti". As it is said that in Kaliyuga, people can attain salvation through Nama Smaranam. That is great idea infact. Later I saw in one of the orkut groups on Lord Srirama that there are some messages which say lets us write Rama koti. And everyone contributes in their own way to Ramakoti. I remember participating sometime earlier also in such messages of writing Ramakoti. Suddenly it struck my mind that, why should I not write Ramakoti in my own blog. Great! It just struck my mind. Here I am starting Ramakoti on my blog. I am excited about it because I love to type faster. It is type writing Rama Koti. The modern way of writing Ramakoti. It also gives me great feeling for the auspicious endeavor.
I will write it in Telugu as google provides me this option to write in telugu and the label will be ramakoti. Lot of people, I have seen in the recent times have written as Jai Sriram, Jai Jai Sriram etc. If I am not wrong, while building the Varadhi, vanaras have engraved the name శ్రీరామ on the stones and have dropped them in the water. Because of the power of this name శ్రీరామ the stones started to float in the ocean thus making the bridge. Such is the power of taraka nama శ్రీరామ. The word as I have seen Ramakoti written by my Grand mother and Grand father is శ్రీరామ. So, I will use the same word శ్రీరామ. I will write it on my devotional site.