Balance

How’s your balance?

I’m not really talking about how long you can stand on one foot, or walk along a raised high-wire. The former I can do decently well, the latter not so much.

A few days ago while I was cleaning up in the kitchen, my kids were watching a show called “Limitless with Chris Hemsworth." In the first episode, the actor Chris Hemsworth trains to walk on top of a crane that dangles off a skyscraper standing 900 feet tall. With movies and TV shows constantly putting people in supposed precarious and life threatening situations, often at high altitudes, I sometimes forget that in real life, unless your name is Tom Cruise, those situations are actually quite frightening. The danger not just in falling but also in strength, stamina, and proper breathing, is real. I was only casually paying attention to the show until Chris Hemsworth started walking along that crane, then I had to stop and watch. I knew everything would turn out fine, but just watching made me quite nervous. My kids even asked me “Dad, would you ever do that?” Without hesitation, I said “Nope!”

Yeah, the older I get for some reason my fear of heights has increased...

The crane platform he was walking on was about 2 feet wide, wide enough that if it were laying on the ground, balance wouldn’t even be an issue. But take that same 2 feet wide platform and raise it up 900 feet in the air, and all of a sudden the idea of walking along it becomes unthinkable. I guess that’s what makes good television. And I'm sure there's an analogy there somewhere.

But like I said, I’m not really asking about that type of physical balance. No, I’m referring to life balance. A platform that for me, with every year that passes becomes narrower and higher up off the ground. Or so it seems.

Life Balance

Life balance has always been a challenge for me. There is so much that I want to do and accomplish each day, but no matter how hard I try, one thing or another takes over and exhausts the majority of my time.

For example, right now. Writing blog posts. Something I really enjoy doing, but it takes a lot of time out of my day and often well into the night. Next thing I know it’s 2am and I’ve sacrificed a good night’s sleep for a blog post, something I then have to pay for the next day as I grog along at work. But if I go to bed on time and get proper rest, the blog post won’t happen, and my unarticulated scattered thoughts never come to fruition, clogging up my cerebral brain function, my creative outlet left untapped.

Another example is reading books, although I admit that over the past year I have learned to balance this activity much better. For me, this has been possible through dedicating smaller increments of time while eliminating distractions.

Distractions

Ah, distractions. The antithesis of balance. The lazy opponent of focus. My carefully planned days falling to ruin due to unnecessary and unimportant distractions. Temporarily giving up my life fulfilling passions and activities for any number of mind numbing readily accessible entertainment constantly buzzing in my pocket and flashing across my screen.

But over the past year or so I’ve tried, with some success, to get into the habit of coming home from work, going immediately upstairs, and plugging my phone into the charger by my bedside. As I walk out of the room, a sense of freedom comes over me. A burden has been removed. I don’t need to look at that phone for any reason the rest of the night. I’ve got kids to spend time with, tasks to complete around the house, and any leisure time can be dedicated to book reading, music, or writing.

Emphasis above in “try” and “some success.” Many days I simply do not succeed at this. The distractions are too great. My resolve is weakened and I find myself laying on the couch glossing around YouTube while my kids run ramped around me. My energy gets depleted and I end up going to bed that night feeling like I accomplished very little that day. It’s disheartening, burdensome, and annoying.

Balance. Let me be clear- there’s nothing wrong with watching YouTube or playing video games or engaging in relaxing and enjoyable entertainment after a long day at work. I’m not about to go throw my phone away or sell my Nintendo Switch or trade-in this modern lifestyle for a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere (as appealing as that actually sounds). Indeed I believe it’s important to embrace wholeheartedly the life and time we live in and use all the tools available to us to strive to conquer the challenges we face head on.

But this can only be done with balance. Focus. And that takes diligence and hard work. Not letting one side of the scale tip for too long in one direction, disregarding the other side that is also an important part of who we are.

Star Wars

Now I don’t claim to be any Star Wars expert or fanatic, just a casual fan since my youth. Everyone knows Star Wars and everyone knows about the force. Yes the force is awesome, and the many explanations throughout all those movies are insightful, interesting, entertaining, and dare I say even contain religious components.

Whenever the “force” is mentioned in Star Wars, there is often another word that is mentioned in the same breath. That word is “balance.” Anakin and later Luke are destined to bring “balance” to the force. I’ve often thought about what that actually meant.

In the end of Return of the Jedi after Luke proves there is still good in Darth Vader and with his help then defeats the Emperor, one could argue that this doesn’t bring balance to the force at all! The light side won! The dark side was defeated! And now the Ewoks, along with the rest of the galaxy, celebrate good conquering evil and Anakin Skywalker gets to be a force ghost! It seems that this would tip the force scale to one side. Unbalanced.

Again, I’m no Star Wars expert and far from the first person to mention this subject I’m sure, but I’ve always thought that maintaining balance in the force meant more than that. It wasn’t really about the number of Sith vs. the number of the Jedi. It was more about allowing the Dark and the Light to interact in harmony with one another. The Dark side will always be there, as will the Light. How you maintain that balance within yourself is what determines your destiny.

And not to get too far off on a Star Wars tangent here, but in the newer Star Wars films, I loved how this idea of balancing dark and light within was manifested in Rey. In Return of the Jedi when Luke is being tempted by the Emperor, encouraging him to strike his father down to complete his journey to the Dark side, I never once believed that Luke would actually choose the Dark side. He was the hero of the story, I knew he would always choose good. He never strayed much from the light. But for Rey, there were moments before they completed the final trilogy that I would not have been surprised if she did succumb to the dark side and choose evil. She walked that line between dark and light much closer. She even embraced the darkness within her, accepted it, also accepted her own light, and as a result I believe she was a better example of bringing balance to the force than Luke.

That might be a controversial statement. Oh well.

The point is: Balance. Accepting all that is dark and sad and difficult and terrible in the world and within ourselves, and meeting that head on with light, happiness, fulfillment and love. That light isn’t going to just show up on its own. Darkness will. But light takes work. Focus. Determination. Endurance.

Balance is that sweet spot right in the middle. And the truth is we are only passers by to it as our pendulum swings back and forth from light to dark.

When I’m feeling overwhelmed or unfulfilled, I think about my life balance. What am I doing too much of? What do I need to do more of? What’s distracting me from being where and who I want to be? How can I eliminate those distractions, increase my focus, and calibrate?

Most of the time I know what I need to do. I just need to choose to do it.

Easier said than done, of course.

But I don’t need the toned body of Chris Hemsworth or even a lightsaber to do it.