Checks and Balances

Payday. What a great day for people in the working world. It is the day that motivates us to get out of bed on the mornings we don’t want to, it’s our salvation for being able to pay that month’s rent, and at times a chance to buy something for yourself. With a paycheck comes responsibility. Bills to pay, rent checks to write, finances to watch, and if were lucky, some money to stash away. Without our paychecks, life would be pretty hard.

Your first job out of college is your first exposure to the “real world” of adulthood. Every day is a learning experience. Time revolves around fiscal years than calendar years, snow days don’t close down offices, and PTO and sick days are taken carefully and strategically. When the alarm clock goes off, no matter how many times you hit the snooze, skipping work isn’t an option. Commuting to work is a battlefield, and every day is a new day out in the war zone. Power walking obtains a new stride, subways are claustrophobics' worst nightmare, and tracking public transportation is your new best friend.

Being an adult, our lives are pretty planned out. We have our morning routines, our memorized commuting route, and spend majority of our days being at work. To some extent, life almost seems to be on autopilot. Weekends are the rescuer and outsource for us to stay balanced. Without having a break to relax, time to decompress our week and to reboot our batteries for the week to come, our lives would be unbalanced.

At the end of the day we all turn down our sheets, and crawl into bed and thoughts start running through our head. As I lay in bed at night, I think about how blessed I am in so many ways and so lucky to have very few worries in life.

Learning to balance your checkbook and your life is something I am still learning how to do each and everyday. No matter how much money you have, it is the small things in life that have the most value. Having a paycheck means you hold responsibility, and responsibility comes with hard work, dedication, and knowing your limits. As I continue to grow as an individual, I know that my faith, my relationships, and the relationship with myself are more important than having a balanced checkbook.

“I have the feeling that in a balanced life one should die penniless. The trick is dismantling.” Art Garfunkel