Balance in the Church
I was talking with a friend last night over dinner about this blog. It got me thinking about what it was that prompted me to really consider balance in all things to be a workable, healthy mantra. I remember feeling overwhelmed with everything going on and being relieved if there was just one night a week where I did not have something that needed to be done. I realized that running from appointment to appointment was no way to live a life, so I examined what was causing all of this activity? There were quite a few things going on in my life, but the one that caused the most activity was church. Read more »
Posted: July 17th, 2008 under Time Management.
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So I’ve been working hard on reducing the stress in my life and find balance in everything. Overall things are moving in a forward direction and progress is being made. With our budget we have a good handle on things financially, socially we continue to enjoy our circle of friends, family-wise the kids are doing great and we are having fun together. I’ve applied the concept of balance to the food I eat and am slowly losing weight, through better time management life at the office is less stressful, and I’ve lessened my TV watching to a much more manageable level. But last weekend I was reminded of one thing I had not paid much attention to. 
So last post talked a little about how I’m trying to instill some family identity in my kids so that we think of each other as a part of one unit rather than a collection of individuals. I talked a little about our family history and passing that on to my children so they have a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. Today I want to look at other ways I can build up the family identity and talk a little bit more about why I feel this is so important. 
One of the things that my wife and I try to instill in our children is a sense of family identity and pride in it. I find the entire concept interesting and fairly alien to my upbringing. Growing up, my name was just that, a name. While there were some famous Dewey’s in the history books and we can trace our heritage back to the 1600s here in America, it did not really intrude much in my life (other than the quickly thought-of insults on the playground, but hey unless you are named Smith, you’ll get that). 
On many financial blogs there is a lament that one reason so many people have such a large debt load is that they are trying to “keep up with the Joneses” those mythical neighbors who always have newer and nicer things than us. I think this mentality really cuts to a fundamental issue about us as Americans. We visit a friend of ours and they show us their brand new 42” plasma flat screen TV. It is quite nice and boy it would be nice to have one in our living room. When you get home, your TV suddenly looks puny. You grow disasstified with it and find yourself looking at the TV ads in the Sunday paper and soon you are comparing brands and features. Shortly thereafter, you are unpacking your brand new TV and showing it to your friend.