The Point of Balance

 

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”  ~ Rumi

“The trick is to find the balance between the bright colors of humor and the serious issues of identity.”  ~ Wendy Wasserstein

“You see, we cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.”  ~ Rohinton Mistry

“What is joy without sorrow? What is success without failure? What is a win without a loss? What is health without illness? You have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. There is always going to be suffering. It’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you.”  ~ Mark Twain

“Faith gives you an inner strength and a sense of balance and perspective in life.”  ~ Gregory Peck

“Life is a balanced system of learning and evolution. Whether pleasure or pain; every situation in your life serves a purpose. It is up to us to recognize what that purpose could be.”  ~ Steve Maraboli

from the Desk of MarDrag:

I am quite sure everyone has heard some form of the saying, “Without dark there could be no light, and vice versa.” In his quote above, Mark Twain expands on that saying very eloquently. There are two sides to everything, then. There is a “light” side to everything, and there is also its shadow side. We are beings of light, yet we have our shadow side as well.

In this current crazy world, with so many distractions, disruptions and difficulties, we likely spend most of our time on either side. It has become more and more difficult to find the Balance between the two. Mostly we find ourselves in the height of hope or the depth of despair. Yet the place we would find our happiness and comfort is in the middle ground, the centerline of Balance.

It is a delicate sway to hover in the Balance of life. There are so many things that can tip us over to either side. And, I think, our vision and focus linger at either side, trying to define what we see and determine how to deal with it, good or bad. But, what if we altered our focus to see BOTH sides, to acknowledge that what is before us is a WHOLE of a thing, for surely it must be if it has two sides. Two sides always make a whole. To concede that there is a good side and bad side to everything, a light and dark side, a sun and a moon side….is to recognize that life is not as fragmented as we would perceive it, and, if we strive to recognize the whole of a thing in its entirety……then it would appear logical that in order to see that, we would have to be standing in the center of it, on the fine line of Balance. Yes?

So…finding Balance is not so much an Act as it is a Perception. All we really have to do is acknowledge that there are two sides to every situation, difficulty, joy, or pleasure and, rather than dissolve into the ultimate depth of either side of it, we see the thing for its Wholeness and revel in the beauty of the Balance that keeps us steady.

If there is despair in your life, acknowledge that there is another side to it, as we all know, and sway your perception to accept the whole of the picture, gaining the knowledge that there is another side to that despair and if you would like, you could find the Balance of it that would keep you steady until the lighter side is illuminated. By the same token, when hope and happiness are there, know that it has a shadow side, recognize that, to be grateful for its presence and embrace and enjoy it, but also so that you are not disappointed when the shadow side appears. Nothing is always good and nothing is always bad. Life moves through different degrees of both.

Embracing the Whole is what will keep us in Balance…all the while reminding us that life is moving all the time and we will sway to one side or the other, but we do not have to lose our Balance, and we never need be broken apart, or left adrift. Make Balance the point of your focus and your vision will cast wide and you will see life for ALL of its possibilities…and you will not get lost…or lose your Balance.

Blessings!