I’ve long thought that this balance thing is an ephemeral quality, something to be strived for but never achieved. The unicorn of personal feelings. Looking back with the wisdom that only age provides, I’m not so sure now.
Balance has (in my view) a particular structure, a few defining variables that I’d frankly never questioned but that are worthy of being said aloud as they prejudice and impact the end result.
As a complete aside I’m temporarily fascinated with the idea of unacknowledged bias as I fear it is an insidious driver of much of our current world state. We move toward that which we agree with, and will (at times vehemently) disagree with those that have a different perspective, even going so far as to not listen to the potential validity of their arguments. For example, what if Trump and Trump-ism is right ? - I’m not suggesting he is, but I will say that the vast majority of us outside the US have made up our minds that he is generally wrong, and have stopped listening to him and his pundits, other than to poke holes in him in whatever way we can. As an example, I wouldn’t wear his haircut personally, but if a person elects to have puffy blond hair, that is neither something to be ridiculed or cause for them to be ignored. Yet the web at large seemed inordinately preoccupied with the man's hair, as if its a reflection of his character in some way. It’s a worry. Our unacknowledged bias against him means we no longer listen or consider his views and point to frivolous elements of his persona to rationalize our own narrow mindedness.
Back to the point though. Balance has a few components to its equation, to make it true or untrue - in balance or imbalance just to mess with those new to the English language. We superficially think of the leaning towards one thing or another (classically expressed as work or play), but both of these variables exist within time. What if time was measured over years or a lifetime versus days or months ?
The question I invite you to consider (as I have lately) is whether balance as a concept is achievable over a longer term than we might normally consider. Pointedly, if balance in ones life is almost impossible to attain day to day, or even over a few months, does that view of it change when looking across a lifetime. I think it does, and I’ll admit it’s my own short term thinking bias that had me anchored in the concept that balance was an unachievable goal.
Here’s an interesting test for each of us to extend this analysis. Say to yourself “if I’m wrong about “X”, then how could I be wrong?” In this exercise, X is something you’d made your mind up about. Fun exercise, and some eye-opening results I'd think.
