The other day I was chatting to a client about the idea of balance, and I asked her if balance was actually something anyone could realistically attain on a sustainable basis?
I know many people strive for it, but is it truly possible to find that all elusive balance?
The dictionary defines balance as:
‘when there is an even distribution of weight’, ‘when something is steady that it doesn’t fall’.
But surely we desire more for ourselves and our lives, rather than something that doesn’t fall over?
Nature teaches us to dance…
When I have questions about life, I always look to nature.
And when I thought about balance in nature, I realised it doesn’t really have a balance.
It has two equinoxes a year, when light and dark is balanced, but they only last for a moment…
The rest of the time nature is in a rhythmic dance of light and dark, of growth and decay, of contraction, expansion and ebb and flow.
It works in a rhythmic harmony embracing change, rather than striving for a static balance of of sameness.
Finding your own rhythm
This then got me thinking about harmony.
The dictionary defines harmony as:
‘the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole’ and in a ‘state of agreement and accord’.
Perhaps harmony is what we should be aiming for.
Striving less to not fall over, and aim more for a pleasing life of wholeness, free of unnecessary struggle.
Perhaps we should accept that we might not find balance across all areas of our lives, maybe it’s not even possible…
But what if we accepted that some parts of our lives need more attention than others, and knowing that those needs and levels of attention change over time.
And that’s okay.
If we can find our own ever-changing rhythmic dance within our own lives, perhaps that’s more pleasurable than striving for something that may not even be possible, or if balance is possible, maybe it’s only sustainable for that short moment of time?