Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Balancing Act - Can You Have It All?

*Bonus card R + 3 of Pentacles
​ The Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot

The Smith - Waite Centennial Tarot comes with a couple of cards that show Pamela Colman Smith’s illustration artwork. Just for funsies, and because you can use ANYTHING for divination, I decided to mix the two bonus cards of Coleman Smith's illustration work into the deck and one came up today in a reversed position.  For elaboration, I decided to draw a second card and Three of Pentacles came up.

This illustration is, Little Charles, from a children's book called, Lessons For Children. Lessons For Children was a popular reading primer in the late 1800’s by poet, Mrs. Anna Laetitia Barbauld. I have no idea what this particular part of the story was about, but the scene shows what appears to be a reasonably well-off family with children who are doting on their grandmother as they sit by the fire. She seems to be listening intently to the little one. Perhaps he is telling her a story. An older girl has her back to the scene as she  selects a book from the shelves in front of her.

To my eye, this card represents warmth, family and togetherness. It's also rather idyllic. Since the card is reversed, I might ask what is coming between the desire for this type of closeness and familial support? Or is the reversed position telling you that this kind of idyllic setting is not realistic, that it takes work and balance to create and maintain familial closeness?

Family VS Work, Art, Accolades?

Added to this, Three of Pentacles. The Three of Pentacles in this deck represents skilled labor or artistry and there is also an element of prestige. So these two cards in combination may be asking you if a desire for recognition and success in your career may be keeping you from having the type of family relationships that you would like. This could also represent distress or resentment that you are feeling when someone else in the family has ambitions or responsibilities that pull them away from the family unit, a spouse or children drifting away, perhaps. The challenge is to find ways to work through or reconcile these two conflicts. Finding a compromise may be key. Another possibility is that you have simply subscribed to the belief that there is no way you can have both career and family.

• But is this really true?
• Could “having it all” be possible, but look a little different than what you imagined?
• What are the things you really want?
• Is there a way to find balance or make them all work in concert?
• What needs to bend a little bit or give way? Sometimes letting something go a little is enough to ease the pressure without letting go all the way.

The original book definition, given by Waite in 1911 for The Three of Pentacles is as follows:

​-A sculptor at his work in a monastery.
Divination Meanings: Meiter, trade, skilled labor. Usually, however, regarded as a card of nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory.
Reversed: Mediocrity in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.

Here are some inspirational quotes to think about:

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Better learn balance. Balance is key.
-Mr. Miyagi The Karate Kid

For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.    
- Lily Tomlin

Striving for excellence motivates you;
​striving for perfection is demoralizing. 
-Harriet Braike

When I think about work-life balance, I don't imagine it as a perfect day where I got to spend the exact right amount of time having an impact at work and snuggling with my kids at home. I never achieve that. But over the course of a month, or a quarter, or a year, I try to make time for the people and experiences I value.    
- Jane Park

Sometimes the prize is not worth the costs.
The means by which we achieve victory
​are as important as the victory itself.
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
​

You can’t have it all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all.
​But in different periods of time, things were rough.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
​

“Shonda, how do you do it all?” The answer is this: I don’t.

Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life. If I am killing it on a Scandal script for work, I am probably missing bath and story time at home. If I am at home sewing my kids’ Halloween costumes, I’m probably blowing off a rewrite I was supposed to turn in. If I am accepting a prestigious award, I am missing my baby’s first swim lesson. If I am at my daughter’s debut in her school musical, I am missing Sandra Oh’s last scene ever being filmed at Grey’s Anatomy.

If I am succeeding at one, I am inevitably failing at the other. That is the tradeoff. That is the Faustian bargain one makes with the devil that comes with being a powerful working woman who is also a powerful mother. You never feel a hundred percent OK; you never get your sea legs; you are always a little nauseous. Something is always lost. Something is always missing.”
​
--Shonda Rhimes, Writer, Director, and Producer