Life Is About Balance

The more I think about balance the more I notice it in my life. And it surprises me again, how those ancient guys already thought about that stuff before.

Making me wonder, why that was lost in the west. I don’t believe the Asians were the only ones to think about those things. Anyways.

Take the yin and yang principle for example. One that is hard to understand. It’s about balance.

Let’s put the names and meaning aside. Those confused me more than it helped. For the sake of this email, I’ll define one side as soft and the other as hard; the opposite.

Now, you could think being in the middle is the healthy spot. Yes and no but not always.

Take your index finger for example. If you point at something we could say it is hard and when letting loose, it is soft.

However, that is only part of the principle. If we look deeper, we notice that both are at work.

When you point at something, the muscles on one side of your finger are active aka hard and the ones responsible for the other side are soft. Otherwise, your finger wouldn’t move.

Same for bending.

If one site is contracted the other is relaxed.

If both sides are hard, it would not move.

If both sides are soft, it would not move either.

Both are there at the same time but it depends on our level of interest how we perceive it.

We can freely move our perception from the muscle level to our whole life and use the same principle.

If one side is active, the other has to relax and go with it. But not endlessly.

Those martial arts stories are a perfect example of this. They usually have some power, let’s keep it at that, to perform special moves. However, they can’t use them nonstop as they have to stay in balance.

When they overuse, this balance breaks and they suffer. Now, having to regain balance or continue to suffer, often resulting in death.

Same, if you are a workaholic, chase happiness, your dream price to marry, or whatever.

It’s bringing an imbalance into your life and at some point, the opposite force gets strong enough to pull you back into balance. With a stop in the opposite direction.

That principle got me this summer when I started to get less work done than the months before. Suddenly, I felt unproductive and wasting time and of course, my frustration grew.

Once I realized what’s happening, I felt relieved. Now, I can test more balanced ways and see what works best.

Where is it happening in your life?

-–

Jens

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