Life Matters: Creating a dynamic balance of work, family, time, & money

Work matters. Work is far more than a job or career. It is a fundamental, ennobling principle of quality life. It’s how we sustain ourselves and our families. It is also how we express our love, how we contribute, and how we nurture the divine and creative within.

Family matters. Family is the fundamental principle of personal happiness and of a regenerating, renewing society. The most important “success” is success at home, and making each generation better is the way we best contribute to society as a whole.

Time matters. Time is the language of value, the commerce of life balance. We can talk and dream all we want, but in the final analysis, it’s what we do or don’t do as we live each day that makes the difference. The way we spend our time reflects our ability to consistently focus on and achieve our highest priorities. It is the measure of our ability to translate what matters most into the decision moments of our daily lives.

Money matters. Money is also a language of value and is integrally related to almost every issue surrounding the relationship between work, family, and time. It is a concrete manifestation of the value others place on our time and life energy, and also a manifestation of the value we place on the “things” money can buy. To spend money is to exchange the results of past effort or commit future time to try to improve the quality of present and future moments for ourselves and/or others. The challenge of managing money is one of our most potentially helpful tools in building discipline and character in our lives.

Wisdom matters. Because life is dynamic, the real issue is not “balance,” it’s balancing. It’s creating the capacity to balance—day in, day out—in the unique and ever-changing circumstances of our lives. Thus, wisdom is vital, not only in long-range planning and goal setting, but also and especially in daily “decision moments”— moments that test our integrity, expand our awareness, challenge our thinking, threaten to divert us from our predetermined path, or open doors of unanticipated opportunity. Consequently, in any decision moment, we cannot “not” decide. Indecision is decision. Life moves on. Consequences happen. Having the judgment to make good decisions daily is what empowers us with the ongoing capacity to weave work, family, money, and time into a satisfying balance.

The challenge, then, is to succeed in each of these four life areas—work, family, time, and money—and to develop the wisdom to synergistically balance the four in the ever-changing kaleidoscope of circumstances in which we live.