Just Jot it January # 25 – Balance

 

Today’s Just Jot it January essay brought to you by Lindaghill.com

Today’s prompt thunk up by, oh wait, its ME!!! — Balance

Balance –

(n) – a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions
(v) – to offset or compare the value of (one thing) with another

We hear it every day, “live a balanced life,” you must balance exercise and rest, balance discipline with fun, balance love with detachment, balance the checkbook, balance your portfolio. Our entire way of life is based on “balance.” Justice is a blind woman holding a balance scale. What I’ve never been able to find is someone who will tell me what, precisely, this elusive “balance” is.

I’ve watched the US political system struggle with balance. As we swing back and forth between liberal and conservative. I’ve watched the stock market swing back and forth from bear to bull and back again. Always seeking that elusive balance. How many wars have been waged to preserve the “balance of power?”

What is balance and how the heck to I find it? I’ll let you in on a secret, balance is not a static thing. It’s not something that you achieve and then that’s it, you’re balanced. No, no, far from it. Balance, to me, will always be a verb.

They say that yoga is not about touching your toes, it’s about what you learn on the way down. This is one of the vital “truths” I learned on my yoga mat. Balance doesn’t really exist. Or at least, it’s not permanent. It’s not a goal to be achieved, it is an action, a struggle. I learned this while standing in tree pose (balanced on one foot for the non-yogis). Stand on one foot for any length of time and notice your feet. Feel those tiny little adjustments that the muscles in your leg and foot make. Balance is fluid, always adjusting, compensation, compromising, finding perfect balance for a moment. There you’ve got it, but then a fly buzzes by, the phone rings, a dog barks, and you have to adjust again. This my lovelies is life. It’s a thousand little adjustments to whatever is going on around you every day. It is finding joy in the tiny compensating actions, laughing at the windmilling of your arms when a fly causes you to topple over. THAT is balance.

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP