Balance

I was talking to a friend who's just changed his life direction.

He's gone from corporate rat race to being happy.

And I've been doing some thinking as a result.

Now before Christmas I had the opportunity to take redundancy, and I didn't. I'm not quite sure why.

As it is I only work part time. This means I'm a part time mum too. Well I'm always a mum but you know what I mean.

The result of this is that I feel I'm not doing either job properly.

The paid job is really a full time job and squishing it into three days a week leaves me feeling like I'm failing. Now I could return to full time work but I don't want to. So I'm left with feelings of failure.

The unpaid job ends up being a rush. Two 'working' days filled with all of the things that other mums fit into five days. This can make these days feel quite stressed when they should be relaxed and fun. Now I could do this job full time but I don't want to. I think Ethan benefits from some time at nursery and I think I benefit from having time away from the children.

What I'm left with is quite a fine balance. Too much stress in one or other job and I might need to re-evaluate my choices.

The problem is that I don't know what to do in lieu of what I'm doing now.
My friend found that once he made the decision to change direction, offers of work came flooding in. He's now doing 4 jobs and he's happy in all of them.
I imagined what would happen if I quit and I couldn't see anyone offering me a job anywhere where I'd be happy.

So I think I'm stuck with my fine balance of stresses, especially as there isn't an offer of redundancy right now.