161. Balance
Balance is important to me. I think that I am the happiest, the most productive, the most fulfilled when I am in balance. It has to do with the food I eat. It has to do with the projects I work on. If I set up for myself multiple projects for which I have little interest and no energy but think I should get done, then I end up totally unbalanced and basically unhappy. If I take some of those projects that I think I should do and mix them in with a project or two for which I have interest and enthusiasm, then the whole batch can often get done.
Back when I was juggling more, I could tell in just a few tries how balanced I was because if my balance was off, I dropped balls all over the place. But if I got myself centered, feet solidly on the ground, a feeling of looseness throughout my body, I could keep the balls going for quite a while.
I have always smiled at Eeyore—for he’s a loveable but grumbly, negative kind of friend. “Oh my—I don’t know—I just think it’s probably not going to turn out very well, but that’s the way my life goes, you know.”
I do not want to be an Eeyore.
I once heard about a key concept in Hasidic thought. It expresses the idea of balance: Keep two pieces of paper in your pockets at all times. On one write. “I am a speck of dust.” On the other, “The world was created for me.”
I think that says something about balance.
