{"id":30,"date":"2004-12-11T13:22:42","date_gmt":"2004-12-11T18:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/?p=30"},"modified":"2004-12-11T13:22:42","modified_gmt":"2004-12-11T18:22:42","slug":"balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/2004\/12\/11\/balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published at<\/em><\/p>\n


\nhttp:\/\/www.polyfamilies.com\/misanthrope20041211.html<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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“Don’t do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.” –<\/em>– Henry Rollins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Moderation is not and never has been my best friend. I like it hot or cold. Lukewarm? Forget it. When I get into something, I charge in, sword waving, chewing on my shield, face painted blue and screaming, eating brains\u2026 <blush> Well figuratively speaking, anyway.<\/p>\n

There is this little thing called balance, however. What about balance?<\/p>\n

Balance is not about doing something half-heartedly. It\u2019s not about moderation, either. It really is about doing something with your whole heart and soul. If you\u2019ve ever been a surfer, gymnast, martial artist, or dancer you know that. If you don\u2019t focus on what you\u2019re doing with all your heart and soul, you lose your balance and you fall. You fall hard.<\/p>\n

While the need for balance is hardly a poly specific issue, the simple fact of the matter is that as you complicate relationships, balance becomes more and more necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what is balance and how do I get it?\u201d I hear you plead with a puppy-like whine in your voice.<\/p>\n

Balance is simply a matter of being effective in what you do. Life is going to throw you a variety of experience, after all \u00ad especially if you are poly! To attain true balance in your life, you all really do need to focus and do what you\u2019re doing with a whole heart. When you\u2019re at work, you\u2019re focused on your work. When you\u2019re at home and with your loves, you\u2019re not thinking about work, you\u2019re focused on your loves. When you\u2019re playing with your kids, you\u2019re not thinking about the bills. When you\u2019re doing the bills, you\u2019re not thinking about that hot date last weekend.<\/p>\n

This takes a lot of practice. In our society, we tend to admire multitasking. While there\u2019s genuinely nothing wrong with analyzing a problem while doing the dishes, or any other routine task, relationships are not routine tasks by any stretch of the imagination. They require focus. They require you to pay attention when you\u2019re interacting.<\/p>\n

But\u2026<\/p>\n

What they don\u2019t require is your full attention and focus when you\u2019re not interacting or planning. When you\u2019re with your husband, don\u2019t be focused on your boyfriend, and vice versa. It\u2019s a sure way to throw a monkey wrench in both relationships, and it\u2019s no way to be balanced in how you interact with your loves.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the balance comes in \u00ad not leaning left when you need to lean right, making all those little adjustments and shifts of focus as you go through your life.<\/p>\n

Balance is NOT spending an exactly equal amount of times with each of your loves. (God forbid. I\u2019ve been involved with extroverts from time to time. If they tried to spend as much time with me as they did with each other, I\u2019d freak). It is about the focus required to find out what their needs are, and the focus required of you to find out what needs you want to meet. It\u2019s about knowing your own needs and finding out ways to meet them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about being a whole person. Notice I\u2019ve mentioned several non-relationship issues here in this column. While yes, I\u2019m poly, I have a job, I have kids, and I have non-relationship-centered interests and passions. It\u2019s important to focus on them wholeheartedly when I schedule time to pursue them, just as it is with relationships.<\/p>\n

But no, you don\u2019t have to be a moderate person to have balance.<\/p>\n

In fact, I\u2019m out of woad and need to go make up some more blue paint.<\/p>\n

Toodles for a couple of weeks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published at http:\/\/www.polyfamilies.com\/misanthrope20041211.html   “Don’t do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.” –– Henry Rollins Moderation is not and never has been my best friend. I like it hot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationships"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}