The Power of Balance

Many people have a fleeting feeling daily that they are missing something in their lives. They reach for passion, fulfillment and the realization of their dreams. Always stretching for a future moment of arrival. This is the place where all of our dreams come true, when we receive all that we have suffered for, when all of our choices in our allusion finally mean something. The reality is that there is NO point of arrival. Life is not about arriving, it is about the journey.

Experiencing the road of life, making choices along the way. You never get to check into a perpetual resort where life stops and you become all that you wanted, experience everything you wanted and have all that you have ever dreamed of. The experience, the joy and yes, the trials / tribulations are in the journey of life. This is how we in fact learn and experience the manner of happiness.

Having now discovered the journey we were previously blinded by let's now discuss the vehicle that enables our journey to be the best road trip ever! This vehicle is balance. Consider for a second if we always did everything for ourselves, our society was full of only self-serving individuals and we spent all our time drenched in hedonism where pleasure is our god and moral standards dissipate. Such indulgence would become very unbalanced, very unfruitful and truthfully would not satisfy. Time is a scarce and limited resource. How we spend it determines who we are, who we will become and who we will impact the most in this life.

The best balance is found in the realization we are spiritual beings with dimensions that flow from this core. Often defined by scholars and scientists as the 4 dimensions of ourselves: Spiritual, Emotional, Physical Mental. The first mastery at balance is what we choose regarding ourselves and these aspects we possess. We often emphasize one and let the others fall by the wayside or not develop them enough. Anything to the extreme can be unhealthy and individually damaging to balance and health. Religions from Christianity to Judaism to Mohammedanism to Buddhism recognize the value of balance in centering a righteous life and gaining peace and happiness.

The core of the principle of balance and achieving success in life is founded in priorities. Priorities are nothing more or nothing less than how we give focus to our time in our 4 core areas of individual development and need. However, this also extends outside of ourselves in our own actualization. For example, how we balance time between God, Family, Community, Country, Career, etc. I have always had a time trying to evaluate how to do this. As a super achiever I would always think I could just do everything in every category and somehow do it all well. I would cut out of sleep, physically and mentally overextend myself. I would focus unduly on my own success and career while neglecting family and health. All of us have our own trials in our lives that challenge balance and the ability to succeed. The key is to recognize that when our lives are out of balance we suffer in some category and fail to grasp daily fulfillment, joy in our journey and ultimate hope in where we will end up when our time on Earth rapidly comes to a close.

In the end, a simple self-assessment as to what areas you need to improve to become more balanced and better able to achieve success is needed regularly. Keep in mind there are natural stages of life where we may be asked to give a greater portion of time to one area. This just means for the scale of time to remain balanced and for us not to overextend ourselves the rest of the areas we do not need as much focus on must have the time we commit to them reduced so that we do not tip the scale and break the balance of our time. For example, parents in rearing children face a span of life where the time committed to home and family life may supercede other less important priorities. However, even in this there is a caution that we must not neglect crucial aspects of ourselves or we cannot be any good for anyone.

The power of balance frees us from the false idea that we must be everything to everyone. It focuses us on the 4 core dimensions of ourselves. It keeps us from becoming unhealthy or unsuccessful or worse; unhappy everyday. We need to reach out and grab the opportunities we have today. To enjoy them and relish the time focused on the right priorities now. This will bring true fulfillment and happiness. As we evaluate daily, weekly, monthly and yearly the balance we have and the time we give to different aspects of our lives we need to celebrate the successes we have in achieving happiness. The purpose of life is to have joy in making investments in lasting things like families, relationships and service to others. No matter what life gives us we have a choice to make in what we do with our time and how we invest in the principle of balance. The power of this opportunity in affecting how we feel each and everyday cannot be overstated.