In The Balance

Walking through the Personius arch onto the stage, found hanging in the balance, is the miracle called life. Hanging in the balance is uncertainty.?It is that state of being where that which has not happened is about to happen.

Remaining in the balance for many is the oh-so-dreamed-of work-life balance. That ultimate bliss that many aim for is fleeting, kept out of reach by the false perception called balance.

Balance: a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.

Balance implies a well-established (illusional) benchmark of equality, levelness, or the all-worshipped fairness. While balance would seem to be a logical approach by which to measure all parts and aspects of life, the reality is that balance as a metric for life is unclear and confusing in addition to unsustainable. What is this balance so espoused by these ever-multiplying, over-published, anti-climactic, motivational gurus, it’s not that simple. Is balance really suggesting that half of the time should be spent working? Or is balance suggesting that half the time should be spent living? Balance is a seesaw with work on one end and life on the other and when they are equal, balance is created, can it be? No. Work = life is a disturbing equation especially if tranquility in retirement is desired. Hey, what about that ultimate bliss? Where did it go?

The difficulty with the concept of balance is that balance does not necessarily mean equal. Here, one could perceive that their home life is lacking, and they, therefore, balance it out with longer hours at the office. Can this be balance? Alternatively, someone might be so discontented with work, disengaging, spending as much time at home as possible, balancing their disharmony at work against their love of home. Can this be balance? It certainly isn’t bliss.

The ambiguousness of the term balance is what propagates it and makes it elusive, though it is the narrowmindedness of its all-or-nothing nature that makes it unattainable. In balancing a bank statement, an error of five cents is not balanced. Balanced is or it isn’t. There is no in-between. In deciding on paint colors for a room, one can’t mix blue and yellow paint to get balance, because what they actually create is something totally different, green.

Actually, the somewhere in between is what people are seeking in life. The somewhere in between is the bliss. How do you define the fusion of life and its component parts (love, family, friendship, work) in such a way that they coexist, building upon one another, interconnecting in creating a matrix of wonderful?

Let’s look at harmony.

Harmony: the agreement of action, opinion, or feeling.

Harmony, not balance, is the answer. While balance is always out of reach, difficult to articulate, and maddeningly unattainable, harmony is flexible, cooperative, and effortless. Balance is an equation. Harmony is a feeling. Balance is unforgiving. Harmony is fair. While balance says, you are out of luck, the numbers don’t add up, harmony says “take a penny give a penny.” While balance says mixing blue and yellow is green, harmony says let’s use green on one wall and blue on another, making both colors work simultaneously.

Balance is easily toppled in addition to being unsustainable. Harmony is ever so present, silently playing in the background, offering to take the lead. That is where bliss resides. When life is in the balance, stop balancing, and listen for the harmony. ?