Friday, May 29, 2009

Is There Really Such a Thing as Balance?


Balance, balance, balance. I need to get my life into balance. I need to try to balance work and home. I need to balance my needs with the needs of everyone else in my life. I need to find my own balance with all I need to accomplish.


Is it just me, or does it seem like 'balance' has become some sort of crazy buzz word and has lost all meaning? I hear so often (many times from my own mouth) that balance is needed. As if balance is the secret to a happy life. And maybe it is, but is it really possible?


When I think of balance I think of riding a bike, or walking on a balance beam. They say (whomever they are) that once you learn how to ride a bike you can always ride a bike. It has been my experience that this is true, but learning to ride a bike does take a certain amount of balance. You have to learn to hold your body in the middle, not leaning to far to the left or the right, or else you splat onto the pavement, no fun.


The same is true for a balance beam, but there is one more trick with the beam. Not only do you have to find that middle point not putting too much of your weight to the left or the right, but you cannot look down. (Booyah, for my two weeks of gymnastics classes when I was 8.) On the balance beam you are supposed to look at a point ahead of you and not at the ground or to your sides.


What's your point Red? Well it is this.....I find myself trying so hard to stay in balance or find my balance that I am so totally not in balance. I am sure that if this is a problem for me it has got to be a problem for someone else right? I am so busy leaning to the left and over correcting to the right, which forces me to lean to to the left again that I have taken my eye off of the goal. I am so caught up on trying not to fall over that I am not really getting anywhere, just swerving dangerously around on the road. If I don't fall over on my own a truck will probably hit me, either way, no thanks.


I need to stop putting so much energy on trying to find the balance and more on getting to the goal, a sort of combo between the bike and the beam. I need to focus on the end point, pushing one petal down after another. Keeping the flow and rhythm of the bike moving forward towards my end target. I think the balance will happen naturally once I am moving forward.


At least that is what happens when I am on my bike.

1 comment:

  1. I totally agree. Life is all about adjusting and readjusting - as some things are more important at certain times than at others. I think there's a passage in Twelve Swans about this - pg 60 to 61 - and that really resonated with me too. :)

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