Tightrope walking between the swings of a pendulum
How do you go about finding balance in life? Does anybody have a clue about what we're supposed to be doing? Life has so many intersecting polarities that it makes my head spin sometimes. I find it incredibly hard to hold in my mind all at once whenever I am trying to make sense of it. You know the good old 'give me a fixed point and I will move the whole world' kind of a thing? That's how the search for ultimate balance feels to me. It's just… the fixed point is yet to be found. But if I could just figure out this one little thing, maybe then I could get (my) whole world to move…
How to strike a balance between being grateful for what we have and allowing ourselves to wish for more? Who gets to decide where to draw a line? Who gets to define what is enough, apart from 'enough' being somewhere between the bare minimum and something that would merely be 'nice to have'? And why is the 'enough' almost always something external that we are reaching for, and only barely ever do we feel 'enough' just as we are?
Sure, there always is someone doing more poorly than us in some way or another – and exactly as likely, there is someone better off. While I'm not questioning the reality of that, is the existence of other people's hardships enough of a reason to accept my own miseries without putting up a fight? Or – does it mean that I am inherently ungrateful for wishing for more if I am actually doing fine in the grand scheme of things and it could have been worse? Is thriving too much to aim for while others struggle to even survive? Who's to say where to draw a line?
Modesty and ambition both get their share of praise. Still, it seems we employ them almost exclusively the other way around these days. It is puzzling to me without an end. It's almost as if we were more ambitious in accepting struggles and suffering and striving for modesty when opening up to joy. Isn't that insane? Why not the other way around?
I think we live in a society where seeking and overcoming challenges gets much more respect and encouragement than striving for comfort and peace. Sure, they both have their own time and place in life. But why is actively seeking one of these openly celebrated while prioritizing the other often triggers feelings of failure and guilt? And hey - I bet you know exactly which one I meant in each part of the sentence as you read it. You did, didn't you?
I have thought about this quite a lot, and I have a growing suspicion that life is nothing more than what we believe it to be. So – if all of the above is a matter of our collective and personal beliefs – shouldn't it be in our power to change them? To start celebrating when we prioritize rest over performance and not the other way around. To encourage having difficult conversations over building up the capacity to 'hold it in.' To strive to become kind and soft instead of assigning worth to being tough and strong. All of those qualities have their time and place in life, too. Maybe they would be easier to balance if we just let them flow when they are needed instead of trying to force them into place. And how to know when that is, you ask? I don't think there is one size fits all answer to that, but I can say that whenever I look inward, it usually becomes much clearer than when I look around.
You know, it may not be about finding balance, after all. The longer I think about it, the more I feel like it isn't about finding balance and keeping it. There is no 42 when it comes to the great question of equilibrium. It's more about trying to pass through those moments that feel like balance again and again. Like finding your swinging rhythm on a balance board or catching the sweet spot on a wave – and basking in the moment's glory until the world moves again, and then you start all over. Life rarely feels like a straight tightrope line. Maybe it is about time we stop approaching it like one and embrace the swing of the pendulum instead. The more we let go of the urge to steer it, the more freely we fly with the pendulum. The more ease we allow into how we fly, the more consistently we will pass through the middle.
Maybe there’s not much more to finding balance than letting go of the idea that there is a single balanced spot to be found and held onto.
Wouldn’t that be pretty cool?
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
