Razors edge – Worklife balance

I often tell myself that anything, just about anything can give one the opportunity to wake up and really have a spiritual experience, or should I say a higher perspective on whatever the current life situation is that one is facing.

It is also the delusory human nature to think that that when a particular goal is achieved , one will be satisfied .

The masters of Advaita Vedanta and non-dual awareness in Vajrayana Buddhism talk at length about being trapped in a cycle of never ending desires. Just as one desire ends there’s a fleeting  sense of contentment which is not so much from a sense of achievement ,as it is relief from the absence of desire. This feeling however is momentary because the next desire soon pops up.

 In my own story, there was a time and I was looking for work and had none  was forthcoming- as a former journalist used to a fast paced independent life I seemed to have become  a defunct has been with child rearing and house-keeping  as my sole life purpose. Add to this the toll on my self worth stemming from lack of confidence. It’s as if I stopped believing in my own abilities because I perceived the world outside had abandoned me.

The saying that dawn comes after the darkest night was proved true with my persistent effort at cracking the work life balance beginning to bear fruit after a good 3 odd years of tireless attempts despite a lot of exploitation that free lancers usually face.

But wisdom did not dawn on me as much when things were down as it is when things are up.

What happens when work gets too much and life as one knows it can’t happen as a result?

 Desire for something and resistance to it are truly interconnected. Once the thing that is desired has been achieved in a sense once really comes up with all the resistances  connected with it, lying unexplored in one’s psyche until that moment. Now that there is work and quite a lot of it, and one’s services are quite in demand, I find myself looking at all the reasons why I should be saying no to taking on work.

Infact  I am almost amused at myself when I think ‘ I might me neglecting the children.’

While work-life balance  is a dilemma faced by many  women, especially those with  young children , the real issue I think here is not so much about whether one is  working or staying home or trying to do both, the answer lies in the degree of awareness one brings into whatever life situation one chooses to experience.

For me, I discovered experientially , that I was not happy with only one or the other. I needed both to feel  fulfilled within myself. The key to walking the razor’s edge is in turning witness to the various roles one chooses to play , and playing them with present moment awareness.