Lately, I've been living in the up or the down. Sort of by choice, sort of just the way I float. Nothing too extreme, after all, I'm still working on balance. Recently I've come to realize that my struggle with balance comes a lack of desire to live in that elusive middle ground. I like the ups and downs of life. Well, not so much the downs, but without them what good are those ups? Middle is boring. Tedious. Blah. So what I've really been doing is trying to force myself to live somewhere I don't want to be.
Don't get me wrong, I know it isn't healthy to live in extremes. I get that. But too long in the middle and I get antsy. I want to shake things up. That usually makes things better or worse, but either way things are different. And different, in my opinion, is good.
So here's the question. How is one to achieve peace or balance when one is constantly in a state of change? Even if I have some steady routines and rhythms to anchor myself (and I'm proud to say that I now have some pretty solid rhythms that I'm confortable with), everything around me is constantly changing. That's life. And if that's the case, does the universe really want me to be balanced? Ok, I realize that sounds ridiculous, but it really is bugging me. If life is about change and adaptation, how then is one to be balanced? Or, for that matter, what is balance? Maybe the definition is off, and maybe we're all reaching for something unattainable and that's why so many of us struggle with this. Maybe we need a new definition of balance or something new to strive for.
So tell me, what does balance mean to you?
The balance come in how one reacts to things. You can change things that happen in the world, only how you perceive and react to them.
ReplyDeleteDo you mean balance like creating between different areas of your life, like your job, your marriage, your kids, your alone time, etc. ? In which case, I think it's impossible to have them all perfectly balanced all the time. It's more a case of borrowing from one to give to another area, and shifting that around. Which is a kind of balance... like a bank balance. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOr do you mean more emotionally, in which case I agree with strugglingwriter? My cat is sick and I have a certain amount of control over how I react to this?
So true Paul. Maybe that's where I'm coming at this all wrong. See, I'm a reactor. When something happens, I want to fix it, change something else, or rail at the sky. I'm working on my lack of zen-ness.
ReplyDeleteDude, love the gnome!
London Mabel, I like that. A bank balance. Thank goodness I have overdraft protection this week!
ReplyDeleteYes, I need to look at my reactions. Or remind myself of my word of the year. CHOOSE. There's a reason I didn't choose balance again. Choose. Hmm, I guess I need to work on how I choose to react to things.
The apparent dilemma where you are, probably due to the fact that you confuse the meaning of the path with that of the goal... If you try to think that every path is a goal, and that it must necessarily start from a point, up or down, and lead to another, shaking in your fragility and calling up your strength, this perspective might solve the riddle. Certainly, it make you feel as in a blender, including internal drives, and different stimuli outside of us, but is not this life, or (maybe) your own stage? By the way, good luck friend ...
ReplyDeleteSomething about this...I wrote more than one year ago at:
http://dramatherapy-atelier.blogspot.com/2009/04/life-panic-dramatherapy-letter-box-and.html
If life is about change and adaptation, how then is one to be balanced? Perhaps life is not about change and adaptation but about experiences. Like a see saw going up and down it is balanced yet there are high and lows and both have pros and cons. The balance is not middle ground, if on the see saw you were balanced in the middle that would not be fun at all, but the balance is over time, some time your are up and some time you are down the swings are balance - It is your time horizon that then matters. Up this year down next year - over a long enough period of time that appears balanced
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