Cleaning Up My Act and Getting My Shit Together

It's incredible how we ride and lord over our children in an effort to get them to clean up their room, organize their school work, and just get their act together in general; then go to our own inner sanctuaries and lament and complain about our own acts in private. We may lead by example most of the time and put out fronts, some real and others totally false, but sometimes we falter and get bogged down in the ruts on the road of life. This is all perfectly normal, I'm sure, it just gets to me some days more so than others. Well, today has been one of those days.
I've always admired those parents who seem to have it all together. There are people in this world who have found an almost perfect balance of family, marriage, work, religion, school, community, and whatever other arenas they indulge in. Whole libraries of self help books and seminars and such are out on the subject. Some people even get rich on it and others, if you look deep enough into their eyes, sparkle as if they've found some sort of holy grail. The holy grail of balance and peace and love and being at one with God and it all, everything. The Dali Lama, Blessed Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, countless saints, and too many others to name all had that sparkle.
Professional nursing models have a sort of answer, it's called Maslow's heirachy. It's a pyramid which illustrates human needs and gives them a place of value. The base of the pyramid is really basic, can't live with out stuff- air, water, warmth, food; then it continues on up. Sex is in there, safety, self esteem, and on up to the holy grail of self actualization. This is the tip of the pyramid , and so far as I've been taught, only three human beings have made it up there - Mother Theresa, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King. I'll toss in the Bhuddha, Mohammed, and Thoreau and Rumi. I think self actualization is the ultimate, all together, shit wired tight, almost perfect, really at one with God and the universe and everything else stage or such. I wouldn't know, I'm still trying to get my shit together, get the yard cut, shelves put up in the laundry room, clean up house, get ready for work, take care of the girls and master songham 3 of ATA tae kwon do. Songham 3 is supposed to be easy but I'm not the best of dancers and I'm convinced one has to be a good dancer before one undertakes ATA tae kwon do. My instructor is great, she's a 3rd degree blackbelt, a former profesional dancer, and one of the aforementioned types who really has her shit wired tight. Cute on top of all that too.
Anyway, I have to press my uniform, get ready for the night shift and get moving. I suppose it's a sort of balance, it might be the best balance I'm going to find for this 24 hour period. My wife and children are well, I've said my rosary, got a sort of work out in and that's a good day. Managed to even clean up and organize my poetry files some, now if I can just get my girls to clean their room and get my wife to wash the car, I think I'll be a step closer to self actualization and the Bhudda and Mother Theresa.