We are all called to live our lives in a balance of work, relaxation, and prayer. Our work can be to support ourselves, raise our children, take care of our physical body, learn new skills, care for our loved ones, or serve others. Our relaxation varies significantly it is useful to devote special times for dedicated prayer and meditation and this is good for our spiritual well-beings. Within an area, a balance is also needed, so that a particular item does not became stale or boring, and so that we can live to the fullness of our humanity, letting all aspects of ourselves grow and prosper.
We must come to realize what is sufficient in our work without the endless pursuit of perfection. Striving for perfection is not a bad thing, unless we overdo the effect and end up hurting ourselves and those around us.
this means taking care of ourselves, getting the rest and relaxation that we require and satisfying our spiritual needs.
In our works, we need to strive for a balance among our different works. We can find more works to do than we have time for and if we apply ourselves on one particular work doing the same thing for extended periods of time, we can find the quality of work decreasing. We to mix our works so that they allow different aspects ourselves to get involve and provide a variety (freshness) to the things we do.
Depending on our work, our needs for relaxation will vary. Balancing the different areas for relaxation helps us to restore our energies in a healthy manner, physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.
One factor to consider in dedicated prayer and mediation is to prayfully examine what benefits are you recieving from it. It is important to note that some benefits of prayer are not seen by the individual and that during periods of spiritual dryness you may not observe any benefits from prayer.
There are times in our lives where we find ourselves out of balance. Some of those times it is possible to change and regain the balance in our lives. At other times, our responsibilities and limitations might force us to live more out of balance then we would like. We need to recognize what we can affect and what cannot. Striving to change what we have no control over causes much stress and pushes us further out of balance.
The exact balance for each person will vary by person and needs to be prayed upon and explored by each person to determine what is appropriate for them.