The following contains excerpts from the book, When Work & Family Collide (A. Stanley).
Understanding balance and priorities is essential in leadership and relationships. At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships, and that relationships matter in life.
This book encapsulates the author’s thoughts about the proper balance and priority structure that should exist between work and family. The main thesis is that most people treat their job as if they are indispensable, praying for God to make up the difference in the lives of their family members. The author points out that people are always replaceable in their jobs, but no one can take their place at home. He suggests reversing the ideology, in which the individual’s highest priority becomes the home, trusting God to make up the difference at the workplace.
“For almost everyone, the word cheating has negative connotations…try thinking of it as simply choosing to give up one thing in hope of gaining something else of greater value…Simply put, you must choose to cheat at work rather than at home.”
“So let me take some pressure off. Your problem is not discipline. Your problem is not organization. Your problem is not that you have yet to stumble onto the perfect schedule. And your problem is not that the folks at home demand too much of your time. The problem is this: there’s not enough time to get everything done that you’re convinced- or other have convinced you- needs to get done.”
“The collision between work and family is inevitable…Before sin, before the fall of man, before the curse, there was work. God made man and placed him in the garden to work…Before there was even a family to support, God put Adam to work. It was part of his original plan…Whereas work is task focused, the family is relationship focused. One is about doing, while the other is about loving…Work is about doing. Family is about being…You can’t ‘fix’ your family. You can’t ‘fix’ your marriage. You can’t ‘fix’ your kids. Family requires an entirely different set of tools and standards of evaluation. You do your job. You love your family. It’s when we reverse the order that the tension escalates and the tug of war begins.”
“Contentment is found neither in the marketplace nor the family alone. It’s found when we align our priorities with his (God’s) as it relates to both areas of responsibility. There’s nothing honoring to God about the workaholic who neglects his or her family. But the man or woman who refuses to provide for the family brings no honor to him either.”
At our music school in Midland, Texas we accept students of all creeds; however, we encourage the reader to gain insight into Biblical examples to help make life-decisions.
The author uses the following metaphor to describe what emotionally happens to our family members when we misalign our priorities.
“Use your imagination for just a moment. Imagine that your best friend walks up to you in your front yard one Saturday and asks you to do him a favor. You have some free time, and so you oblige. He walks over to his car, pops the trunk, and produces a thirty-pound rock….he hands you the rock and says, ‘I really need you to stand here with this rock until I return.’ He explains why it’s important that you stand in that one spot with the rock and that he’ll return shortly to retrieve it…this is someone you trust, so you agree. At this point he thanks you profusely and then hops into his car and drives away.”
“An hour goes by. And what started out as a feasible favor is beginning to get a little hard…Another hour goes by, and your arms are starting to ache. Everything in you wants to sit down, but you made a promise. Then suddenly, to your relief, your friend pulls in the driveway…But your joy is quickly extinguished. Instead of relieving you or your burden, he says, ‘Look, I told you I was coming right back. I was delayed. Here’s the deal. I need to run one more quick errand. If you’ll keep holding the rock, I’ll make it up to you when I return.’ Another hour goes by. The sun begins to set. Your muscles are screaming at you to drop the rock. But you refuse to give in. Another hour goes by. You begin to lose you grip. Your arms begin to fall. You tell yourself to hold on, but your body just won’t respond. Down goes the rock.”
“Your mental willingness was overcome by your physical exhaustion…No amount of love, dedication, commitment, or selflessness was going to be able to make up for the fact that your arms were worn out.”
“There’s always a final straw: a comment, a phone call, a tired explanation, a no-show, a forgotten birthday, or a missed game. Some little thing that pushes those we love past their ability to hold on…You always know when the rock has dropped. There’s never mistaking it. Your straight-A student is failing. Nobody runs to greet you at the door when you finally arrive. Your husband or wife has lost all interest in being intimate…in my experience, when the rock drops, there’s always some permanent damage. Most rocks can’t be put back together again.”
At our music school in Midland, Texas we endeavor to keep our relationships positive and encouraging with and among our students, their families and our communities.
“Do you know what your family wants from you more than anything else? ‘Love’ you say. That’s part of it. But it goes deeper than that. They want to feel accepted. In practical terms they want to feel like they’re your priority. ‘But they are my priority,’ you might argue. Granted. They may be your priority, but that’s not my point. They want to feel like your priority. It’s not enough for them to be your priority. They must feel like it.”
“Now, here’s the point: our families’ willingness to hold the rock for us is born out of their desire to please us. Part of their reason for wanting to please us is that in pleasing us they hope to gain what they value most, our acceptance. They say yes with the hope that their sacrifices will result in a deeper sense of appreciation and love. Their hope is that if they please us. We’ll find them even more acceptable. Taking the rock- compensating for our busyness, putting up with our absences- is a way to capture and maintain our affection…Here’s the problem. When we leave our families holding the rocks for too long, their sacrifice becomes a source of the very thing they dread the most- rejection…And the longer they hold them, the more rejected they feel…When we take advantage of a family member’s willingness to support our dysfunctional schedules and mis-prioritization, we send a message of rejection…They feel rejected. Again, that’s not what you intend to communicate. But actions speak louder than intentions.”
It is our goal at our music school in Midland, Texas to create a family environment, in which every student feels respected and cared for. The values of relationships and respect cannot be overstated, and music helps to establish these values. As students learn to collaborate and as their families come to listen, communities are enriched and relationships strengthened.
“Husbands and wives are hesitant to ‘put a stake in the ground’ because they feel like they’re betraying their commitment to be supportive spouses. Nothing could be further from the truth…To facilitate your husband’s or wife’s mis-prioritization is to add to your own dysfunction…Submission has nothing to do with fulfilling a role you weren’t designed to fill. That’s not submission. That’s emotional suicide. God isn’t going to honor that…It’s through mutual submission that the created and the Creator experience intimacy. And so it is with a husband and wife.”
“Sooner or later, mental willingness will be overcome by emotional exhaustion. When you reach that point, you’ll do something. But odds are it will be something you regret.”
“Every time you cheat your family- no matter how trivial- it represents a draw against someone’s emotional strength. Every time.”
“On the marketplace side of the equation, you’re expendable. Even if you own your own company, you’re expendable. You know that. At home you play a unique role. You’re the only father or mother your children will ever have.”
At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe that each student is unique and has specific strengths that are different from everyone else. It is our goal to help the student discover those strengths and maximize them through training in core disciplines. Each person’s value to the community, therefore, is needed and valued.
One of the things that studying music can teach, a life-lesson, is that of priorities. It is impossible to succeed in gaining mastery in one’s artistic discipline without establishing a priority structure. This becomes metaphoric for life and the student’s understanding can make that mental jump, having learned these lessons through applying discipline, patience, focus, commitment, and ‘playing the long game,’ at our music school in Midland, Texas.