Life Balance vs Obligations

Life sometimes gets out of balance because of what we think of as "obligations". Women, especially, who often serve as caretakers for their family and friends, feel obligated to this care. What is an obligation? According to the dictionary, an obligation is: “something one is bound to do, a duty or a responsibility.” That sounds simple, right?

So what are some obligations? What things in your life do you think of as your responsibility or your duty?

Driving on the right side of the street is one
If you are a parent, you are obligated to care for your child
If you have a job, you are obligated to show up and produce.

What many of us do is put a great deal more things in the obligation category than is necessary. We use language like “I have to do this” or “I must” or “I should” or “this is what “good mothers” do” or “all the other managers are doing this”. Here are a few examples of things we often see as obligations or duties or responsibilities that truly are not.

Befriend folks in our lives who are down and out or lonely
Take care of everyone else’s needs and wants
To pretend that you like something when you don’t
To be nice 100% of the time
To live someone else’s dreams (parents, children, spouse, media, church, etc.)
To give up your own dreams for your spouse or children or family
To take that night course
To stay in that relationship
To live in a city you don’t like
To have a clean house
To live in a big house or any house
To mediate among family and friends when conflict arises
To continue a relationship with an addict
To make others happy at your expense
To volunteer at school or anywhere else when your heart is not in it
To host parties or arrange get-togethers

Now, you may choose these things. You may want to do these things. But it is not your moral duty to do any of them. You have a choice. Doing things you do not like to do that are not true obligations wastes your time and energy and contributes to your own unhappiness. I would go even further than this, you have a moral duty to take care of yourself, to be your true self and to find ways to express that in the world. And often our choice of obligations goes directly against this idea.

One way to determine whether you need to do something or not is to ask yourself “what are the likely consequences of not doing it?” For example, you may have a schedule that says your refrigerator must be cleaned out every month. So here you are staying up til midnight to get it cleaned out. What are the consequences if you don’t? Your homeowner’s association may be sending you nasty-grams about your yard. What happens if you ignore them? All the other children in the neighborhood have elaborate, time-consuming, expensive birthday parties starting at age 1. Your child wants the same thing. What are the consequences of saying no? Well, you get the idea.

So the challenge here is to look at your own list of obligations.

Obligation Worksheet

An obligation is something that is a responsibility or a moral duty. We have obligations for some things such as driving on the correct side of the road or caring for our children. But we often extend that definition to all sorts of things that are not truly obligations. This eats up our available time and energy.

List all the obligations you currently believe you have. One way to start is to look at where you spend your time and energy. What are the major parts of your life? After you’ve made a comprehensive list, ask yourself the following questions for each entry: “What are the consequences if I don’t do this?” and “Who would/could do this if I didn’t?” and “Do I enjoy doing it/Does it make me happy to do it?” After completing this exercise, are there tasks that you thought were obligations but really aren’t? If you do not enjoy them or are having time or energy stress, can you drop them? Identify those and eliminate from your schedule. Be ruthless with this. It is your life, energy and emotional health you are protecting and nurturing. You can always add it back if you find that you are sorry you cut it out.

The idea here is to ask the question “is this a true obligation?” when faced with taking on new tasks and deciding what to do on any given day. If you have difficulty with eliminating items, notice your inner talk. How do you convince yourself that this item is different or that it really needs to be done by you? Free up time and energy by recognizing that whom you serve and what you do are totally your choice.