Juggling the Demands of God, Family and Work

Juggling the Demands of God, Family and Work

(www.entrepreneurmomnow.com)

                How does a person measure his/her success? Is it on the amount of wealth and material things that he/she possesses? The popularity that he/she gains? Or how about the job positions that he/she achieves? When I was young, I would always associate success to wealth, popularity and job positions. But as I grow up and get older, I gradually begin to realize that the true meaning of success lies in the capacity of a person to balance the different aspects/facets of his/her life. This is achieved by first determining our own overall purpose, goal, mission and vision in life, then to be followed by proper prioritization of things to do, given scarce resources like time, money and opportunity.

 

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In a talk entitled “Juggling the Demands of God, Family and Work” conducted by Mr. Pat Gelsinger in May 2003 (Mr. Gelsinger was the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Intel Corporation at that time), he shared how his life transformed into a worthy Christian life. Then he focused on sharing his 6 principles on how he balanced his professional (work), personal (family) and spiritual (God) lives, as follow:

1.       Develop a Personal Mission Statement and Goals for your life.

2.       Prioritize your personal time and your life.

3.       Prioritize your personal relationships and your family time.

4.       Work hard – be a great employee.

5.       Have mentors in your life.

6.       Be a clear witness.

 

I personally agree with Mr. Gelsinger’s principles. In order to achieve a balanced life, one must begin with his/her own personal mission statement and goals in life. This first step is important because setting goals/determining one’s mission in life will determine the ultimate path/direction that one is going to take. All of a person’s action will just follow on the said path/direction. It’s like the garbage-in, garbage-out principle. If the goals in life of a person are not clear to him, his actions will definitely become also unclear which will eventually lead into waste. Of course, such goals in a person’s life is greatly influenced by his/her values and environment which includes his/her family and peers. Second is prioritizing one’s personal time and life. We are created with own mind, freedom and feelings. We cannot give what we don’t have. So it is very important that we value first and satisfy our personal time and life before we can value others because, otherwise, we’ll lose ourselves and get lost from our goals in life. Having personal time and life may be as simple as satisfying one’s food cravings, purchasing desent clothes, etc. But for me, there has no other wiser activity than to spend personal time and life by praying to God because it is through praying that we achieve true inner peace. Third, after satisfying personal time and life, the next to be prioritized is personal relationships and family time. Many are having difficulties finding time for family. Either a person spends too much time for himself/herself or too much time working without realizing that he/she is already neglecting his/her family. As we all know, family is the basic foundation of the society. If a family is broken simply because of one’s lack of time, the society becomes broken too. A good interrelationship achieves emotional rewards. Fourth, a person must work hard to become a great employee. It is in working that a person maximizes his/her potential as a human given that his/her intelligence, skills and capacity are being put into the test and sharpened. In return, through working, a person receives financial reward. Working hard not only brings goodness to oneself in terms of good pay and higher job position but also goodness to the society as a whole since a person working hard contributes to productivity and quality goods and services. Fifth, we need to have the right mentors in life. This means that we need to find the mentor which will best suit our set goals in life. Why? It is because we don’t know everything in life, and we cannot be an expert in everything. We need others’ wisdom for we learn not only from our own experiences but also from others’ experiences, as well. One of the benefits of a mentor/coach in life is having someone who can provide feedback on whether we are still living in the right path or not. And the last one is being a clear witness on his/her own public and personal life. Be ready to be accountable for one’s own action and share own experience to others to inspire others.

 

(www.manifestdaily.com)

What does this mean then? Does an average person have more difficulties than a more capable or talented person in coping with commitments to God and family? And does an average person need to work even harder to be great employees, making achieving balance impossible for the average person? I don’t think so… because everyone, regardless of capabilities and talents, can achieve a balanced life as long as his/her goals in life are clear, and he/she knows how to prioritize. Even if a person is more capable or talented or even works harder, but if he/she just focuses on work and neglects his/her family and God, he/she will still fail to achieve a balanced life. Achieving a balanced life is a great challenge. The more power a person has, the more responsibilities and expectations he/she has, therefore, it becomes more difficult for him/her to achieve a balanced life.

Sometimes, achieving a balanced life has nothing to do on whether a person is just an average person or a person who is more capable or talented. The struggle could be caused probably by wrong decisions in life, such as choosing the wrong profession. Such wrong decisions could have resulted from failure to set clear goals in life. One can probably know that he/she has chosen the right profession if he/she is happy doing the tasks assigned to that profession, and that his/her outputs are productive yet not causing toll on his/her personal and spiritual time (i.e., he/she is able to contribute quality outputs and yet he/she still has time to rest and to spend for his/her family and God.)

At the end of the day, a person cannot just focus on one thing and forget the others because he/she may lose other equally important aspects of his/her life. As Mr. Gelsinger told his audience in his talk, the challenge for a person is on how he will use and allocate his/her 16 hours of awake time each day to God, family and work.

 

References:

1.       Text

“Juggling the Demands of God, Family and Work” by Pat Gelsinger, produced by Roger Gehring & Bernie Dehler

2.       Images

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www.manifestdaily.com