I recently had the opportunity to speak to the Indianapolis Chapter of Young Catholic Professionals. The group brings together professionals in their 20’s and 30’s looking to live their faith more fully in their work life and build relationships with others seeking the same. My talk centered on my career and faith journey over the last 35 years, focusing on some key discoveries along the way.

As I opened, I quipped that, walking-in to the meeting, I finally realized that I was no longer a “young Catholic professional.” Speaking with members of this group individually before and after, I also realized that my existence as a “young Catholic” was nowhere near their level of understanding or devotion. Such is the journey of life and discovery.

In the Q&A at the end of my talk, a young man asked about “work-life balance.” Work-life balance has been a recurring theme throughout my career: in the headlines, in the office, and at home. The concept has gone through a few iterations but remains relevant with the prevalence of dual working parents, divorce, the trend toward grown children not living near their parents, and the myriad demands on parents and their families. The many things of life and changes in traditional support structures can create a sense of imbalance in our many priorities.

My quick response to the question was: I don’t believe in work-life balance. Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about the subject and recognize that such a response is provocative, perhaps even a bit antagonistic. I followed with: there is no balancing working and living, there is just living. I proceeded to talk about living an integrated life. As I later reflected on my answer, I realize it was incomplete. I understood the spirit of the question but may have focused a bit too much on semantics.

The question of work-life balance is really about time. The thing we struggle with is the spending of our time and the sense that we’re not giving one thing or the other enough. Usually, that “thing” is a person. We feel imbalanced when something we see as a priority – often a person – isn’t getting the time or attention we, or they, feel should be given.

Speaking of semantics, now we see the first word that matters: priority. Like our money, how we spend time indicates our priorities, our loves, our attachments. We must first be clear on our priorities before we can even begin to reflect on whether or not we are spending our time appropriately. Normally, the balance question centers on work and family. Does my work consume a disproportionate amount of time relative to my family? After we’ve answered the priority question, we have to answer the expectation question. What is your vision of how time should be spent in your priorities? If someone else is involved, what is their vision? If you have different expectations, the issue isn’t really about balance. It’s about coming to a shared understanding.

The first step in solving any disconnect is about reconciling expectations – it’s not about balance. It’s about desires and preferences. If we’re talking about children, it comes down to vision and priorities. What do your children need? What do you want to give or feel you should be giving? What does your spouse expect? From there, we have to honestly assess how we spend our time. Perhaps it’s not work that is really the issue but TV or sports or some other interest we’ve prioritized.

Work and family are primary vocations. Everything else is a secondary vocation or just an interest. It may be important, but it’s not the same priority. Or is it? We need to fully live each vocation to which we’ve been called. This means showing up when, where, and how, we need to. We need to make choices that create an integrated life – not one or the other but all of the above. We also need to recognize when a lower priority is impacting a higher one.

Many years ago, there was a cliche accepted as wisdom about marriage being a 50/50 endeavor – each spouse needs to do his or her share. Imbalance creates dissatisfaction. I remember my sense of surprise when I later heard a speaker say it wasn’t true. If its going to work, he said, marriage demands 100% from each spouse.

Juggling is often used as a metaphor to reflect the notion of work-life balance, but it is an act which no one can sustain indefinitely. Joy and peace are found in living fully in each of the places we’ve committed ourselves. We have to give 100% to the vocations to which we’re called. From there, we begin to realize that the “time” issue is really about correct choices based on our priorities and shared vision.

Next, we reconcile the differing demands of our vocations by realizing that life moves in seasons. There are seasons for planting, seasons for growing, seasons for reaping, and seasons for waiting and replenishing. There is a time for all seasons. The demands of the season will change. None of them last forever. We can’t juggle a season – there is no balancing planting and harvesting – both must be done…both must be lived fully in their time.

Choices must be made in the day to day, but balance is the wrong goal. You can’t balance love of a child with your duty of work. You keep loving even as you are working. Choosing to live your work duty fully is not a rejection of your child, it is an example to him or her. It becomes problematic when our choice of one duty eclipses our other priorities. This is not imbalance, it is disorder.

Sometimes the season we are in demands more in one facet of our life than another. Young children may demand more from us than teenagers. A new job or project may consume us for a time. The key is recognizing the season we’re in and making sure those in our life share our understanding of its demands. The season will ebb and flow but your life, and relationships, goes on.

We win in this by keeping our center always before us. We lose by equivocating time and affection and responsibility. There is a time for work, there is a time for leisure, there is a time for homework, and there is a time for date night. But these times don’t lessen or change our ultimate priorities. These are daily tides that must ebb and flow, but they are just part of the ocean in which we exist. Tides aside, we find ourselves floating in the ocean of our heart and soul, the loves we hold close in those waters, and the virtues that define us.

When it comes to primary vocations, it’s not either or, it’s both and. The rest is seeing the seasons and the tides, then focusing on shared expectations. We come to find that we’re not balancing anything but pouring ourself out into what matters most to us. Then we’re on to the next season.

Our eye turns toward balance because something feels out-of-whack, imbalanced. That feeling reflects disordered choices amid priorities. We can choose to sacrifice a season or a relationship or our virtue in the name of power, or pleasure, or stuff, or glory. But that’s not really about balance. Properly centered and properly chosen, we live in a daily flow of tides amid the seasons of our life. We come to find that we can “have it all” by recognizing the tide and the season, and helping those in our life see them. It is not something to swim against, but flow along with.

For those accompanying us, our right choices, right sacrifices, right efforts, and right sharing, help affirm the truth along the way. All will be well. I am here. I see you.

Live your season. Trust your tide. Don’t fight them by aiming for balance. Live them fully by embracing the moment and reassuring yourself, and those counting on you, that your choices are rightly ordered, you are fully present and working to be fully alive in your vocations, no matter the season.