DailyOM: Life As It Is - Making Life Work for You

[Guest guest]

Life As It Is

Making Life Work for You

At the end of the day, we must come to terms with changing what we can and

accepting what we cannot change.

Sometimes we have so many varying responsibilities in our lives, ranging from

work obligations to caring for children to running a household, we feel we

cannot possibly make it all work. We may feel overwhelmed in the face of it all,

ending each day feeling hopelessly behind schedule. However, regardless of how

frustrating this can be, these are the parameters that make up our lives, and we

owe it to ourselves to find a way to make it work. Rather than buckling under

the pressure of an impossible to-do list, we might take a moment to view the

larger perspective.

Like the president of a large organization, we must first realize that we cannot

do every job ourselves. The first step to sanity is learning how to delegate

some of the responsibility to other people, whether by paying someone to clean

our house or trading childcare duties with another parent. In addition, we might

find places where we can shift our expectations in ways that make our lives

easier.

For example, expecting ourselves to create a healthy home-cooked meal every

night after a full day of work, errands, or caring for an infant or toddler may

be a bit excessive. We might allow ourselves to order in food once in a while

without any guilt. Accepting the adjustments needed to make our lives work is an

essential ingredient to being at peace with our situation.

At the end of the day, we must come to terms with changing what we can and

accepting what we cannot change. Sometimes the laundry piles up, a sick child

demands more of our attention than usual, and we temporarily get behind with our

schedule. Accepting this momentary state of affairs and trusting in our ability

to get back on track when the time is right, we gracefully accept our life as it

is, letting go of perfectionism and embracing life as it stands.