Growing up teaches you a lot and brings more challenges you ever expect. Balancing your career, your family, your romances, your friendships, and your independence is a lot to handle as a first-time juggler (or early twenty-something who's just entering adulthood and realising how hard it is, same thing).
A lot of the time, everything is good and balanced. But often, priorities get skewed, and before you know it, you've disappointed people because you couldn't keep up with it all. It may be down to conscious decisions you've made to improve your wellbeing or happiness, but a lot of the time it's all accidental and you find yourself failing some in your life; and you often only realise when it's too late.
With it being the thing that takes up a majority of your life, career comes first in the list of metaphorical juggling balls. There's got to be interest, excitement, and variation. Finding the right career path takes a lot of trial and error, time and patience and willing to start at the bottom of the pile. Some seem to strike it lucky, but that luck didn't come their way without hard-work and initiative being taken.
The people who you meet through your career are important. They're important because you spend 35+ hours a week with them, and they need to make you laugh, make your days enjoyable and be there to provide support, should you need it. They also need to challenge you. An easy day tends to be a boring day, and there's always going to be people to test you in order to grow and move up from the bottom of the food-chain - where you started, remember?
In no particular order, next comes family. Arguably, family is the most important and should've come first, because everyone has a family; family is who you choose it to be. Whoever you consider as your family, they're ones you should always keep close; relatives or not.
It's often easy to almost take their importance for granted. With growth and time, the appreciation for the family you have increases and you understand why you should keep them near, more and more as time passes. It's the things you were told to do when younger which you didn't think twice about, which you now don't have to be told to do and do, just because.
Another thing you may or may not have to juggle is romance. A romantic relationship isn't essential, and not something that everyone wants. Yet for those who do want it, it can bring levels of happiness that you never knew existed, and a sense of content-ness. Content-ness among all the shit--ness.
'Soul-mates' may be mythical creatures, but for those who want someone there through it all, it's a comfort and a support.
In-this non-chronological order, friendship comes next. Friends are a special kind of support. It's love and a bond built over a long period of time or a short one; good experiences or bad ones. While nothing's smooth-sailing 24/7, friends are the ones who can break your frown when you're at your lowest, and knock some sense into when you make inevitable mistakes.
Whether you have one or one hundred, it's the ones who make the cut through everything you get pelted with through life, who are worth keeping hold of.
Finally, you're left with you. Some hate their own company, and some love it. Independence is something we never knew we'd gain when we were younger. As a child, being alone is boring. But with growth, a lot find happiness when alone, whether that's for most of the time or just a few evenings per week.
Independence also gives you time to assess your juggling abilities, or ignore them. Analysing every life choice you make isn't good advice because it could lead to overthinking and overanalysing. However, being mindful of your relationships, your happiness and striving to be a better person without others is just as beneficial as having loved-ones around you.
Through work, play and independence, juggling these elements can be a test. Often one part of life (and everything that comes with it) can become the dominating thing, and extra time could be spend on it. This can cause the brain to focus too closely and block other things out - there's only so much space in there. You'll therefore unconsciously dismiss other elements of life, causing conflict, doubt and weakened relationships with others or yourself.
It often takes someone to point it out which allows you to see the bigger picture. The elements you were focussing on has distracted you from the fact you that you actually suck at juggling, You assess how many balls you're successfully juggling, and which ones you've dropped. It's then that the guilt and resentment comes flowing but chances are, it was all unconscious and life got ahead of you.
It's important to take a step back to view where you are in life, and where those around you are in their lives. Are they the same? Are there any transitional periods or opposites between you and the people you're less in touch with? People go through life at different paces and each pace and path is ok; it's the slotting them together which becomes the challenge; but a challenge very-worth facing.
Communication and effort is what can get your juggling back on track. If the one's you've hurt or become distant from are ones worth keeping, after the communication, they'll accept that juggling is hard. They've probably done something similar and struggled to find that balance just like you have.
It's being mindful in yourself, and the ones you have around you which make things okay again.People fuck up a lot, and no-ones an expert life-juggler.
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