I can’t keep up.

I consider myself a fairly balanced person. When it comes to scheduling my life, I’m good about balancing work, exercise, family time, my social life and my spiritual life. I devote a little bit of time to each. But sometimes (lately, often) even doing what I consider “a little” of everything can completely overwhelm me. Because usually, I end up sacrificing my household. Dishes remain unwashed, the carpet unvacuumed, checkbook unbalanced…

I was raised in a house that was virtually spotless at all times, so to have an environment that is the exact opposite of spotless is tough for me to swallow.

I’m spending quality time with my daughter, my family and friends, so that’s good. And some people would say that’s enough. But it’s simply not enough for me. And lately, I can’t truly enjoy my quality time with loved ones when, in the back of my mind, I’m so ashamed of the state of my household. I feel I’m being irresponsible. But what am I supposed to do: stay home and clean all the livelong day?

I know I’m not unique in this problem. It’s the age-old conflict among twenty-first-century Americans. We are urged to be both selfless and selfish at the same time. Bookstores are loaded with self-help books preaching that we need to spend more time on ourselves, while the parenting magazines on the next shelf over are filled with colorful pages about all of the crafts and activities we should be doing with our kids.

It’s as if our culture is in denial that we have only about 16 hours a day to get things done. According to the messages we’ve been given—primarily via talk shows and health magazines—our daily lives are supposed to consist of the following: Go to work, play with our kids, make slow-cooked meals (which we have to chew slowly so we don’t gain weight), spend quality time with our spouse, exercise, get eight to nine hours of sleep, pay our bills on time, clean our house, go on Facebook, hang out with our girlfriends, take our dog for a walk… it’s too much. How can anyone possibly expect us to do all of these things in one day?

I don’t know what the answer is, nor what the order of importance should be. All I know is, I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of responsibilities left untouched. And it’s getting hard to breathe.

What do you do when you’re overwhelmed? And is anyone else confused by our society’s mixed messages?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 3:01 pm and is filed under parent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.