The Difficulty in Living Two Lives

Thursday, December 03, 2009

I was headed out of town on Monday for two weeks in Virginia for a case going to trial. My little one stopped me in the morning and asked why I was going to work with my suitcase. I told her the truth: "I'm going to see my other family."

I jokingly explained that I had another family in Virginia ... with a home, kids, and a job there. Okay. So that part was a lie. She giggled. So did I.

It has now been three days and I have not seen them. I miss them dearly. It feels like forever because I was absent for the two weeks leading up to my departure. Upon my return early this morning, I drove straight from the airport to work. I still have not seen them. Did I tell you I miss them dearly?

It feels nearly impossible to live two lives ... but we try to do it all the time. For example, when things are going right on my work blog, this blog seems to fall to the back burner. When I pour a lot of time and effort into my career and professional development, my family gets pushed to the side. If you have played this tug-of-war between two lives before, then you know the frustration. But there is hope. And here are some tips:

• Decide that you can only live one life. Most of my hurdles over the past ten years have stemmed from that fact that I tried to compartmentalize every aspect of my daily life (i.e., work, health, family, friendships, church). Each had their own little box. Until we come to the realization that there is only room for one life, there will be conflict.


• Pick the life that is fueled by your passion. There is no sense in living the life that that drags you down. This weekend Rick Warren, pastor and author of A Purpose Driven Life, talked about being stuck in a meaningless career and the importance of finding your passion or purpose.


• Once you pick that life, prioritize your priorities. Just because you may have a conflict between work and family does not mean you have to choose one and ignore the other. That, my friends, does not work. Trust me. But once I picked family first, then I was able to prioritize the rest. For me, it looks something like this: God > Family > Work > Church > Everything else.

The rest of this plan is unwritten. It has taken me years to get to this point. My life equation above is a set of priorities. Am I living them right? Not always, but we're working on it.

Question: Are you living two lives? Are you ready to pick one? What helps you make you decision?

Photo: Flickr: eqqman