Have you seen this?

I've been watching this series that NBC is doing on Women.

Have you SEEN this?

So far as I can tell, we are ALL unhappy. Miserable. Indefinably morose. With careers or without. With children or without. Old and young. Black and white. Blah and blah blah blah.

And then the EXPERTS go on to talk about BALANCE. Like it is a pill to be prescribed by someone in a white coat. Like it's some oasis on the horizon and if we just focus and BALANCE then we will ALL be magically HAPPY.

Let me tell you what I think.

BALANCE is a MYTH. A big, FAT media-perpetuated MYTH to make us all feel MORE inadequate.

Want to know some of my secrets to contentment (I hate the word HAPPY. Happy is FLEETING, it's TEMPORARY, FICKLE and EPHEMERAL, so I refuse to use it or to seek it. I look for contentment, I look for PEACE.)? Two things (well, more than that, but I have that link over to your right about what we believe, that's a big part of it, but not the point of this post): PRIORITIZATION and MODERATION.

Revolutionary, I know.

I have never been one of those women who wanted to have it ALL. I'm not capable of BALANCE. I know this about myself so I spare myself the frustration and depression and I don't chase after that illusion. Instead, I prioritize what I must do, what I need to do and what I want to do. The rest, I let it go. Someone else will do it, some where along the way.

After that? I remember this: Moderation in ALL things. That statement shifts in meaning if you shift the emphasis, this is where I place it. And I remind myself that there are times and seasons in our lives...we're just not meant to have it ALL, ALL AT ONCE. We have kids when we're younger because we can't keep up with them when we're OLD. But you know what we CAN do when we're old? We can travel and sew and read and write and serve (in ways we can't do when we have kids).

I think I've watched the last segment of this series that I can stomach, if they try to tell me one more time how to be HAPPY, I think my a** will begin to TWITCH. (name that movie!)