Five Life Lessons: #4 - Balance is Key
Michael C. Roubicek, PhD, LCSW - aka ‘Dr. Mike’ - has been a psychotherapist since 1983. In this series, he shares five lessons he’s learned about life in over 20 years of working with Bariatric (Weight Loss) Surgery patients.
Read previous: Lesson #3 - Change is Hard, but Necessary
Lesson #4 - Balance is Key
A wise man once said, do not run faster than you have strength and means, but be diligent to the end. He called that “Paced Progress”. When we embark on a project we easily recognize that we need strength (physical, mental, spiritual, etc.) to pursue it and we need means, or in other words, resources (money, support, time, commitment, desire, etc.) in order to carry the project through to completion. No one starts a project intending to not complete it; but sometimes we don’t recognize the price we need to pay in order to finish it.
To illustrate this to my patients, I often say: “I’m a little short on cash today, can you give me $20?” It doesn’t matter if I’m your best friend or a person on the street, if you don’t have it, you can’t give it to me. So we need to learn a process of acquiring the “$20” before we agree to “spend” ourselves by engaging in any experience, be that a project, an activity, an interaction, etc. We need strengthandmeans…
An easy way for me to talk with patients about balance is with the notion of a checkbook. We all understand deposits, withdrawals and return on investment. And at some stage of life we recognized the importance of living a financial lifestyle where the deposits exceed the withdrawals. In short: don’t spend more than you make. The same is true with our overall life. We find balance when the activities we participate in, and the interactions we have with others put more into our emotional bank account than they withdraw. And because our time is limited we need to focus on those things that bring a good return if we are to keep our account filled. That way, we can engage, give, serve, participate, help, etc. without the burden of exhaustion that comes when we “overspend our account”.
Up Next: Lesson #5 - Support is Essential
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