I did a piece last week on Stephanie Houseman’s “Seven Steps to a More Balanced Life,” a workshop she is leading at the Wellness Center. The program will have participants take a good, hard look at their lives to see where the stress and imbalance is and what they can do about it to bring their lives into balance.

According to Houseman, people should be calm. They should be happy and their lives should not make them crazy. They should be in control of their lives, rather than vice versa.

There are, to be sure, lots of people whose lives don’t make them crazy. But what about the rest of us? You know, those who volunteer for committees and clubs and boards, who shuttle their kids to band practice and karate and gymnastics, who work and grocery shop and fix meals and do laundry and get the car fixed and pay the bills and deal with the cell phone provider and the thousands of other things we have to do to make our lives run. We are stressed. We have too many commitments and too much on our plates. We are preoccupied, overburdened and over stimulated. But it’s possible that, like the scales of justice, your life is actually and delicately balanced by the mayhem. How, then, do you know if you might need to take a look at the big picture? How do you know if your life is truly unbalanced?

There are many obvious signs, some of them a little scary. If you can’t remember driving from one place to another because your mind was on work and not on the road, you may be overburdened. If you can’t remember what your seven-year old told you about his day, you might be working too hard. If you can’t remember what you ate for lunch (or even if you ate) because you were too busy, you might be pushing it a little too hard.

People think that life in the big city is stressful, but the go-go lifestyle is everywhere, even here in Jersey County. I, for one, left the big city for this area for the express purpose of slowing my life down. There were days back in Washington, D.C. when I was so tired that I tried to open the front door of my apartment with my Metro card. I would routinely miss my stop on the Metro because I would be completely zoned out with exhaustion. I left politics to slow the pace and got into the bar business instead. It wasn’t too long, though, that I thought my head would explode with the sheer pressure of it all.

And so, to the country for peace, quiet and the slower pace of life in rural America. Ha.

Now I find myself juggling the responsibilities of running a household, raising two children, caring for and tending to my husband and his business, managing the editorial copy for three newspapers and everything else I try to fit in. I thought I had it all pretty well under control, but a few episodes lately have given me pause.

The other day, after getting my kids ready for school, fixing breakfast for everyone, lunch for me and my husband and getting dressed and ready myself, I arrived at work at about 8:30 a.m., took a seat at my desk and began my daily ritual of writing, editing, making phone calls, etc. At 10 a.m., a full 90 minutes after I had arrived, Jill came in and asked me if I knew my car was running and the lights were on. I was stunned. My brain was so preoccupied that I had arrived at work, put the car in park, gotten out and came into the office without shutting the car off. It sat there idling in the parking lot for an hour and half. Thank God I live in an area where no one steals cars.

Two weeks ago I wore the exact same outfit two days in a row because I literally did not remember what I had worn the previous day. Last week I did the same thing but because I just didn’t care (now that’s a cry for help, ladies). I have taken my One-A-Day vitamin three different times in one day because I couldn’t remember talking it. I return phone calls more than once. “Yes Stephanie, you already called me back,” my understanding friends say.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that all of these are symptomatic of a larger disease – overwork, both professionally and personally. But I can’t take Houseman’s workshop. I’m too busy.