The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power

by Katherine Morgan Schafler

I don’t know one balanced woman. I know a lot of women who are two extra days in a week away from feeling balanced, or one professional housecleaning service away from feeling balanced, or one generous extension on the deadline away from feeling balanced, or three entire days of their children in someone else’s loving and competent care away from feeling balanced. I know a lot of women who, like Rupa and like old versions of myself, structured a very balanced-looking life only to feel something between fidgety and haunted by the tap tap tapping. It’s easy to get hooked on the feeling that you’re really close to achieving balance, like a gambler at a blackjack table playing just one more time for the fifty-fourth time—but alas, the house always wins. Balance remains one step ahead, the ever-elusive prize of female modernity.