3M Post #38 - No flower stays in bloom forever

A few weeks ago, one reader has emailed me after my Journey/Destination blog post and asked these questions:

I would say that I am very career-driven/ambitious and I am one of those people who really enjoys working but as I grow older, I felt the need to create an identity of myself out of work and I guess this is where the dilemma kicks in. How would/did you deal with/manage with your personal expectations when it comes to both work and personal life? How did you know that you should prioritize one over another during different life phases (i.e. working till late for a job/project vs spending Christmas with family)? Is it true that it’s impossible to balance both aspects without guilt? As for the managing expectation part, I guess my end goal would just to be happy wherever life takes me, which I honestly struggle with because I’m such a “destination” person and I really want to learn how to dance in the rain while waiting for the storm to pass.

I have yet to answer her questions…only because these are tough questions to answer, and I don’t know if I have the answers either. However, I hope I can offer this guiding philosophy that helps keep me centered and make the right decision during each phase of my life: We are only given so much time in this life. We need to make the most of it. Whatever it is that we choose to focus on, we should give it our best and always remember that no flower stays in bloom forever, don’t wait too long to pursue the things that we value.

One current trend today is for most professionals to start their family later in life. Some want to put their careers first. There is nothing wrong with that. However, physically, we are not meant to have kids at a later age. We see many couples having to go through IVF or some other means to have children. That can be costly and emotionally draining. Some marriages even ended in divorce due to infertility. Children of older parents also have a higher risk of health issues. If having children is important to you, please plan accordingly. Maybe if you are not ready to have children yet, then save your eggs or your sperm. There is never a right time to have kids, but you can at least choose an optimal time. My husband and I always knew that we wanted kids, but we knew we weren’t ready quite yet. We were together for at least eight years before we had our first child. At that point, we had enough savings to buy a starter home and my career was stable enough. We also planned for our second child. We knew we wanted another baby. We waited until I was done with my master’s degree before we started planning for conception of our second. With birth control medication, we made things work for us. I mentioned this topic because I think it’s important to know our physical limitation. For example, I know many who said they would travel when they retired. Well, when they retired, they got knee problems that prevented them from doing much sightseeing. So, if you always wanted to go to Italy or some exotic places or do something adventurous, plan for it while you are still able to enjoy it.

Over the years, I try my best to balance my personal life and work. I wouldn’t say that I was perfect at it. It was hard at time to know the right thing to do. The decisions I made weren’t always the right decision, but I learned to work through any regrets and let go of any negative feelings associated with these decisions. I remembered going to the company’s five-day long annual meeting when my first child was just two months old. It was the first time I was away from him for even more than a few hours. It was a tough decision, but the company has a 90-day policy in which they could give my territory to someone else if I was gone for more than three months from the job. For a salesperson, that’s essentially the job. As we had planned for my husband to take time off working a corporate job to write his book and take care of the baby, I came back to work on the 89 days. I traveled to Montreal for that trip, planned everything so well, even pumped a bunch of milk to ship home only to have the US Custom stopping my package from coming across the boarder as they thought it was hazardous materials. Over the years, I have missed some school plays and recitals due to work trips, but I watched all the videos my husband took. For the ones that I could make, I always made sure to stay presence. I turned off work email notifications and when the occasional phone calls came through, I would let it go to voicemail if I could.

So, when you have a family with young kids and a demanding job as well, which one takes priority? This is my own opinion, so if you don’t agree, please feel free to share your thought in the comments. For me, it depends on the situation. You don’t want to miss your child’s play at school, but there is a project that urgently needed your attention. Could the project be delayed until later that night or early the next morning? If you must work, could someone else help you record it or be your substitute to cheer on your child/ren? The joy on your child’s face when they see you at their performance is irreplaceable. They are not performing for other people; they have been practicing to perform for you. However, if it’s any comfort, they won’t remember any of it. I kid, but it’s mostly true. My two boys don’t remember any of those recitals or school’s performances. They only know of them through the photos and videos we took. That doesn’t mean that your absence won’t be missed or have an impact on them. So, try not to miss too many of these events, especially since there will be fewer and fewer of these opportunities as they grow up. Always remember that no flower stays in bloom forever, so each of these beautiful phases of your life will also pass. So, treasure these moments when you can, whether it be accomplishing something at work or accomplishing something in your personal life.

As for the guilt, when I was younger, I used to have a lot of guilt – especially as a mother. Well, every mother has guilt. I don’t know which one of us doesn’t. Ha ha. As I got older, I learned to let things go. To me, I only have so much space in my brain, and I would rather fill these spaces with good thoughts and good memories. Guilt would only bring up sad and depressing emotions that bring about nothing good. Why feel guilty for making the best decision you could at that moment in time? If you could turn back the hands of time, would you make a different choice? Maybe, but you cannot go back in time, so why load yourself with guilt? Instead, maybe do something in the future to make up for it.

So, I hope these few words on this blog post help you to balance your personal life and work and learn how to dance in the rain while waiting for the storm to pass.

Until next Monday! Have a great week, everyone!

Mindy??????????