The Art of Balance

You can call it balance, or time management, prioritizing or what have you.... but in the end, it is not easy. Of course, there is some irony in that I've actually found myself getting obsessive about being balanced.
Is being "extremely balanced" an oxymoron?
Part of it requires being focused, and by that, I believe that few people, certainly not me, can juggle the various parts of their life by "going with the flow"... it requires planning and also progress tracking, the latter being another way of saying journalling. Everyone has heard the cliche, "if you don't have a destination than any port will do" to speak of the importance of goals and planning, but also, if you don't look back as well as monitor where you are now, you can't tell whether you're getting closer to your goal or not.
All this, of course, will be resisted by many as losing the spontaneity of life, and in fact, that is why part of my mission statement, refers to "focusing AND having fun", (in order to avoid being obsessive about being balanced)
The other risk, I believe is to allow one's self to become stressed because, inevitable interruptions ("Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." John Lennon)seem to make it impossible to even start on some of the priorities that you have painstakingly established for yourself. Those are times where I have to remind myself, that I am accomplishing things, just not the ones I originally set out to do, and perhaps some of these may be even more important. But then again, perhaps they are only distractions from what is truly important and the "art" is knowing when to guiltlessly abandon your plan, and when to exercise self discipline in sticking to your guns.
All of these involve an ongoing evaluation of what is truly important, and being true to the values and principles that you've established, and commitments that you've made. After all, most things "work if you work them" by which I mean to say, if you make a commitment, do not let things distract you, but remember, "easy does it" should also mean, make commitments very carefully and ensure you can keep them.
Three principles that have served me well, Reason, Purpose and Self-Esteem can be used as compasses to always check one's actions and direction. To hold reason as an absolute, means that you refuse to engage in any type of rationalization. Remembering your ultimate purpose, always reminds you of what your true priortities are. (I am assuming that a person has taken the time to identify what that is for them specifically, but in a general sense, your purpose is to have a happy life.) Self-esteem reminds you that you deserve to be happy, and that working to that end is right and should not create any conflicts in your mind.
Being happy means juggling, family, health, finances, creativity, personal growth etc. Not easy, but worth it, and hey, I will never get it perfect, but I will have fun getting closer and closer!!!