When I was growing up, we had a decorative brass scale sitting on an end table next to the couch in the living room. The antique scale fascinated me with its intricate details etched into the brass. There were rubber grapes in the round trays on each side. No matter how much I wanted them to, the trays rarely hung evenly. I was always looking for balance. But, of course, unless you put the exact same weight on both sides there was really no way for the trays to balance—especially since these items were not chosen specifically for their weight.
I never knew why mother had the scales or where she got them. It seemed to me as something totally out of place and certainly not useful. Why would you have a set of scales in your living room?
A Question of Balance
The other day in a meeting at work someone mentioned having trouble balancing exercise, meditation, and journaling. They were stressed out and coped by running instead of engaging in their usual activities.
Several weeks ago, the word balance was in my head all morning. I wanted to offer myself words of advice on how to balance the various parts of my life. Living a balanced life is difficult. There are many books available on the subject. Most advice is common sense. But if most answers are self-evident, then why is it so hard to balance all the elements in our lives?
How do we find time to achieve a balance of peace, calm, activity, gratitude, satisfaction, happiness, physical exercise, rest, recreation, work, family, food, reading, TV, housework, yard work, and appointments of all kinds? And, there are always unexpected things that pop up—your car breaks down, the air conditioner system stops working, the electricity goes out, a tree falls on your house . . . name it, and it can happen, and does happen and puts a hiccup in well-laid plans. As a friend of mine reminds me, “These interruptions are your life.”
Balance is not better time management, but better boundary management.
Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices.
— Betsy Jacobson, an American businesswoman
I am not well qualified to offer advice about balance. I am still working on it! On a good day, I make lists of all the things and activities that are important to me. I make a schedule. I start out full of energy and optimism and follow the schedule two days if I am lucky. To be so obsessed with a schedule and all the things “to do” feels constraining to me. I am anxious to get everything done. When I finish, I am exhausted . . . not just physically but also psychologically.
Is it that the childish part of me hates to be told what to do? Is it the rebellious teenager in me who only wants to do what feels good in the moment . . . and to heck with everything else? Or, am I just lazy and undisciplined?
The only answer I have to those questions is that it is probably a little of all that . . . plus, activities have to be interesting enough to pull me into them once I start. Doing something to check off a list has little excitement or motivation for me. I lose interest quickly if what I am doing does not engage my brain or have a purpose that seems really important.
Rethinking Balance
I do desire to have balance in my life. Maybe I have been approaching the issue of balance all wrong. I think the image of the antique brass scale is misleading in finding balance in life. No two things are going to have the same weight. And, if one is heavier, does that make it more important? Certainly not. Rather than heavier or equal weights, I should think of it as appropriate weights of elements in my life that create balance.
Balance in life is not a fixed thing like evenly hanging trays on an antique scale. I may have been closer to the truth about ‘balancing life’ when I tried unsuccessfully to make the trays hang evenly. Perhaps I should have realized at the time that by moving rubber grapes around I should not view balance as a goal but a process.
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony.
— Thomas Merton (1915-1968) American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and religious scholar
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