Bicycles, Meditation, and Life-Work balance

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Albert Einstein

Bicycles

_{Back from a ride!}

It is a chilly sunny morning as I hurry to load my black and red Trek 2000 road bike with red sticky handlebar wraps into the back of my Subaru hatchback.

I am meeting up this morning with a friend and former colleague Mike Z for a ride along the old railway track converted into a biking trail that runs from Mechanicville to Ballston Spa.

Over the past year we have created a healthy habit of meeting up on Saturday mornings to do meditation, go for a walk or a bike ride when our schedules allow. It is sometimes a challenge with us both having busy careers, kids in college and plenty of home projects to take care of for us to always find time, but we try.

Finding balance in our lives is often a topic of conversation. Both of us working in the construction field we discuss the obstacles to having a well balanced life, especially with all the demands that our construction projects can put on us.

Where does lean construction philosophy fit in helping us and others find a healthy work-life balance.

Earlier this spring, on a cold morning while exploring the woods just off the bike trail Mike turned to me asked “Why do we call it Work-Life balance and not Life-Work balance?”

I was immediately struck by that question, it felt like a profound mind shifting question. Why do we think of balancing life around work, and not the other way around?

Our culture teaches us to identify with what we do for living first and foremost, and then fill in the rest of who we are around that. It is the symbol of our success or failure. “What do you do for a living”? is the usual question asked when meeting someone for the first time in a social situation.

But like an old Zen Master, Mike flips it around and asks why do we put Work ahead of Life when we speak about a balanced life.

Mike Z and his dog Aspen checking out the old abandoned concrete railway bridge that is slowly crumbling away.

Meditation

_{My robe and oryoki bowls}

I have been practicing meditation for over 25 years and became an formal student last year at Zen Mountain Monastery, a Buddhist center nestled at the base of a mountain in the Catskills, located in Mount Tremper, N.Y.

During week long silent retreats where I practiced 10-14 hours of zazen mediation I have often wrestled with the thoughts of who am I and how is this life meant to be lived.

Like others I have strongly over identified who I am with my job. I have become aware to some extent that what I do for living is just way for me to provide the resources needed to raise a family, feel a sense of accomplishment and be a productive citizen. This identity is lacking and incomplete though, it is really just a part of my story.

I have come to see that work and life as we see it is really inseparable. When I punch out from work at the end of the day and head home, I don’t transform into another person. Creating this mental picture of ourselves as a duality of identities is what has caused me personally to struggle with leaving work at work or conversely leaving home at home.

It is one single life that we live, it is ourselves that divide things up is something my meditation practice has shown me. My meditation practice is learning to become intimately aware of this and experience life as it really is, complete and perfectly imperfect.

Balance

_{The woods reclaiming the abandoned railroad bridge}

When you see that your work and home life are not separate, you can find your way to intentionally create a balance lifestyle. Work doesn’t have to be an escape from your home life, and failures that are encountered during the work day doesn’t have to spill over into your home life.

Of course these ideas are easier said than done, but borrowing from lean construction philosophy, we can practice the learning cycle of PDCA (PLAN-DO-CHECK-ADJDUST).

Plan your intention and how to live a balanced life. Find others who share your vision to help you accomplish it.

Do everything possible to put the plan into action. It takes practice. Have patience and practice continually.

Check in with yourself daily. Don’t wait until you are completely exhausted or your work and home life are way out of balance to make a change.

Adjust the plan. Don’t be afraid to try something else if you are feeling out of balance, plans can be endlessly adjusted.

Conclusion

Trust your feelings and don’t fight with yourself mentally. Give yourself a break. Life is difficult and filled with endless challenges that are for the most point out of our control.

Life-Work balance takes vision, planning, and practice.

Keep practicing no matter how challenging or difficult it is, and remember….

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat”

F. Scott Fitzgerald