At times, it might feel like life has placed an impossible choice in front of you. Two vital things compete for some essential and limited resource – your time, your energy, your focus. Perhaps the night your biggest client is flying in to close a year-long negotiation is the same night your daughter stars in the school musical that she’s been working on all semester.
This isn’t about clever solutions (though hey, find them if you can – maybe the clients want to see a bunch of 8th graders perform Anything Goes!), but rather, it’s about the path forward, the Third Choice.
That choice is this: Do not allow life to do this to you a second time. At least, not in the same way.
When I was younger and had no children, I had the kind of career that featured frequent major make-or-break meetings like the one above. Things I couldn’t reschedule or miss without dire consequences. But since my career was my major focus, that wasn’t a conflict. I didn’t miss anything… until my first child was born. Then, suddenly, those conflicts were happening all the time.
And because I’m a little thick, it took me a bit before I made the necessary shifts. I replaced that job with one that didn’t have those kinds of meetings. One that better fit the life I wanted to live, and the impossible choices I wanted to avoid.
If you find yourself being forced to choose between pursuing your passion and giving energy to a romantic partner, just remember – a good alignment between those two means you don’t have to make that choice. It might be painful, but one of those things doesn’t serve the life you want to live, even if it once did. (And the answer isn’t obvious, nor always the same! And if you think it is, then maybe that says something about the element of your life that you should be reconsidering?)
Don’t hold two magnets together by their North sides, trying to force them together. Flip one around, and find harmony.
The Opportunity Machine 