So, I’ve been thinking about balance lately.

Balance has recently presented itself in my life in a few areas. As with many things, I am always amazed how certain circumstances will show up on my radar in the external world the moment it is manifested in my internal one. It’s possible that this occurs because of a perspective shift, like when someone buys a new car and suddenly there are a lot more of the same make and model of the vehicle roaming the roadway in which they just bought. Or it’s possible that this is just how the universe works, through divine intervention. Always providing to the worthy soul, the ones exploring change. The reward? Tiny gifts, little gems that get tossed out into our field of awareness for us to further investigate. This is where choice comes into play, this is where our control factors in. We choose to either ignore the universal wisdoms or get curious about them. My advice: Always, always, always, become curious.  

I’m searching for balance in my own life, and slowly I am finding it. In today’s society, balance isn’t touted as greatness, but the reality is, it’s the greatest equalizer in life. How many times have you heard this? “Work hard, play hard.” There is some truth to it, as it pertains to the concepts of balance–meaning if one side of the scale presents us work and the other to play, it would logically make sense that to balance working hard, one must play hard–but I have found it to be vastly misleading. I used to find this saying enticing, as if it were a way to live life, but I am finding the opposite to be true. There is no balance in these words because usually one will end up simply working hard with not enough time to play. Or one will naturally overextend themselves in one area over the other. It’s odd to me that as a society, striving and aiming for relaxation isn’t a normal part of life, rather the opposite is touted as greatness. Achievement is strictly based on how productive you can be. Society holds these individuals–the overly productive ones–on a high pedestal, the ones who can juggle one-thousand projects, hustle to form successful companies, all while burning their health and mental capacity to the ground. They are viewed as heroes. They are viewed as tokens, walking God’s for us to look up to and strive to become, pull influence from and emulate. This has built a very strange and confounding culture. One which I feel many are beginning to question. Maybe the way forward is to simply work regular and play regular. Why the call for extremes?

Thich Nhat Hanh provides the following story from his book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation:

The Buddha asked the monk Sona, “Is it true that before you became a monk you were a musician?” Sona replied that it was so. The Buddha asked, “What happens if the string of your instrument is too loose?”

“When you pluck it, there will be no sound,” Sona replied.

“What happens when the string is too taut?”

“It will break.”

“The practice of the Way is the same,” the Buddha said.

The natural way of life holds two complementary forces which make up all of life. When one area increases, naturally the other decreases. In this case, the looseness of the strings of the guitar (lute in the story) when plucked creates a large void, if too tight, the opposite occurs, destruction. When I am too busy, I have not enough time to relax. When I relax too much, I do not get enough done. Again, the key here being balance, the middle. Navigating the space between the tipping scale, finding the point where the strings of the guitar are wound to create perfect harmony. My part is to monitor the scale to ensure that it does not lean too heavily one way or the other, and to catch it when it starts to tip. But reality is what it is, and it cannot be denied that there will be moments where the scales of life do tip, it’s unavoidable, but do make the adjustment and do course correct. Investigating this concept has allowed me to see and learn where I am failing in being the gatekeeper to my own scale of balance. The key emphasis being learning. Take my mindfulness practice for example. There is a constant exercise in finding the balance, where I can sit in the intended space with a lack of rigidity but also a sense of awareness. Leaning too heavy one way or the other causes more harm than good.

With a lot of this on my mind, it was only fitting that I sat down to conduct a daily guided meditation, and wouldn’t you guess, the session was peculiarly titled, Balance–Literally moments after, within the same hour I sat down to start writing this piece. The conclusion of the session provided wisdom around a single Swedish word, lagom, meaning, “not too much, not too little,” or “just the right amount.” A slightly extensive meaning for such a simple five letter word, yet it feeds the soul with just the right amount of awe and wonder. At this moment, I am happy to be catching up with this seemingly age-old Eastern philosophy of balance, humbled by the process of adding the tiny pebbles of growth into the universal barrel that is life, thus keeping a sense of homeostasis to my own scale that measures balance.