Balanced Checklist

“The energy debt charges interest,” someone said to me today. Wow.

So many of our personal struggles can be approached the way you balance a checkbook. You can’t be financially stable just by making more money, nor can you reach stability solely by curbing your expenditures. You need a balanced flow – expenditures shouldn’t outpace income, and ideally at least some of those expenditures should produce income in a virtuous cycle.

The same is true of energy, of joy, of all the other things you need to live. We use the term “live below our means” in terms of money – spending less than we’re capable of in order to save more and insulate against shocks. But how often do we do that with time? With passion?

Are you “living below your means” when it comes to how much you put in your schedule? Are you balancing the checkbook of things that give you energy versus things that cost it? Are you making sure that whatever pain you endure, you find a way to balance out?

All bills come due, sooner or later. The more you push them off, the higher the final tally will be. Someone is counting – it should be you.