As a busy Dad, sometimes things can be overwhelming.
Talk to my wife of 15 years and she’ll tell you being home with two kids under 4 is overwhelming every day. And she’d be right. Still, despite having all the respect in the world for my wife as both a woman and a mother, there is stress and pressure that comes from being Dad and being the sole financial provider.
I’ve been away from EOT for a while now. It’s been hard because I love writing about being Dad and a husband and I love the blog we’ve created. Blogging continues to be my creative outlet. Being a social media and digital marketing champion by day is great, but the creative outlet that is writing for me has been an immeasurable amount of fun. I try to be personal and tackle all sorts of subjects.
Late last year, I blogged about our family’s big move to the Midwest. The last nine months have been whirlwind. Both personally and professionally. It’s been almost impossible to attain the balance I’ve had at other points in my career and family. Since the day we got off the plane in Kansas City, we’ve been non-stop on the go: new job, new school, new house, new neighbors, new weather (yuck! snow!), new doctors and even a new baby on the way. It’s crazy.
All of this pressure – both good and bad – came to a head for me this past Friday. After celebrating my daughter’s 8th grade graduation, I started to feel odd. I had some chest pains and my left arm was killing me. I knew that those were some symptoms of a possible heart attack, but I was a typical man and just wrote it off as a small annoyance. But the pain persisted and by 9pm on Friday, I was very concerned.
My wife drove me to a nearby hospital and after a few hours of tests, some morphine, and some fluids, they admitted me to the hospital overnight for observation. As I write this post, they’ve ruled out a heart attack but still aren’t sure what my issue is. All the heart attack tests came back negative, but they can’t rule out a cardiac issue because of what I am experiencing.
I’m confident it’s going to be something brought on by stress. But, until they know for sure, I’m being careful and trying to regain some balance.
My family is the most important thing to me in the entire world. I’d die for all of them in a split second. I don’t want to die because of a stressful job or the stress that life has thrown at me the last few years. I have to make changes and they have to be physical and mental.
I tell you this personal story because I truly believe many Dads are on the same path of destruction. While you need to do well in your career to feed, cloth and house your family, it won’t do them much good if it sends you to an early grave. I’d rather have less vacations, fewer promotions, and less money than leave my family before my time.
A recent story on CNN.com talked about how little Americans take vacation. And while some corporate executives would chuckle at that, since they rather work the “help” like Ramses in ancient Egypt, too little time off is just one problem effecting overwhelmed Dads.
Overall, for me, it’s the issue of finding balance. In a job where checking our brand’s Facebook page and responding to customers on Twitter eats into my weekends, it’s hard to “turn it off.” In this connected world, when you have a connected job, you almost never leave it.
It really makes you wonder if its all worth it.
In two words: it’s not.
That doesn’t mean I am giving up my career and living off the land with five kids and a wife to support. What it does mean is I am changing my behavior. I want to work for a company that supports balance in the lives of their employees. That’s why I came back to the Midwest. I came to find more balance, not less.
It’s a work in progress, but we’ll have to keep forging ahead. An old friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook reminding me that without health we have nothing. He’s right and I am going to get mine right. That means I need to find that balance and it’s going to be hard.
At the same time, it’s going to be easy. All I have to do is look at my wife and kids to realize everything else is second fiddle. Hopefully, sharing this story will help others realize that family should always come first.
Scott also contributes at Technorati.com where he writes about politics, and other crazy stuff.
