Keeping It Balanced

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” – Charles R. Swindoll

Work and life balance are a difficult thing to keep together. On the one hand you have the job that says if you want to get ahead, you have to do more. If you want that promotion, raise, or recognition, you have to do more than outside of your normal work time. I see this a lot in education. Almost every week there is a request for teachers to do more, and after ten years I have decided to only do what needs to be done in order for my students to learn and grow academically. The focus is my fifth graders. I came into education for the students.

For me, finding work and life balance involves me saying no. In the workplace, it is easier to say yes, but for sake of myself, saying no gives me more energy to focus on what’s important. From hobbies to family, saying no gives me more time to invest into something that will last and has more value. It’s not that I am not doing my job anymore, it’s that I am focusing on what is more important in order to have the time and energy to focus on what’s more important here.

I took these photos a while back at Romare Bearden Park in Uptown Charlotte, N.C. The park has a pretty cool water feature on one side of it. It looks even better at night, but since I am more of a day person, I haven’t brought my camera out there at night yet. The park features a huge field, blooming trees during the summer, and it’s right across the street from the minor league baseball park. I have been practicing a lot lately with long-exposure photography. I am hoping to head up to the mountains soon in order to put that practice to some real use at some waterfalls and streams.