Finding Balance

Extremes come easily to me. Too many activities on my schedule or none at all. Eating daily healthy meals or only frozen dinners for a week. My life seems to swing from one side of the pendulum to the other. Very rarely am I able to find the stable, quiet, middle. Why is finding balance so elusive?

Even in Empty Resting I am trying to find the middle way. I don't want to jump into so many activities just to distract myself from the emptiness. But I also don't want to wallow around in self-pity all day long either. Like the pendulum, I am trying to find the center.

An intentional life.

My goal is to have more of an even approach to life - a life that is not so busy that I have no time to think or reflect. Just busy enough to stay active and engaged, still with plenty of space for creativity and contemplation. There are very few examples in modern day society. People living balanced lives don't usually make the news. Instead we hear about the mom running back-to-back marathons after battling cancer. Not the mom successfully balancing self-care with work and family life.

Balance would look differently in everyone's lives. We each have our own unique levels of energy. I'm more of a low-energy person and so my balanced life would look much different than someone with high energy. Such a person would think my life too slow and boring. And I would find their balanced life exhausting.

So my challenge is to experiment and find the right proportions between activity and rest. Hopefully in time I will find the sweet spot somewhere in the middle that is just right.