Uncommon Sense: The Fallacy of Balance

I’m at the end of my rope. I can’t keep all the balls in the air? I am overwhelmed and under-satisfied. How do I keep the love turned on with my partner while managing children and a home based business and my creative passions? How do I find balance?

Sort answer: You don’t.

Long Answer: Sugar, you really absolutely, positively don’t. In fact, the quest for this ever-elusive equilibrium is pure crazy making. Balance is a fallacy. A giant conspiracy designed to make us all feel like we’re continuously fucking up and falling short. It sells yoga videos and meditation retreats and time saving kitchen devices. We download productivity apps and make to-do lists and buy things that plug into our electrical outlets to make us feel like we live in the midst of an artificially scented rainforest.

Serenity now. Please.

And despite all of this we are wildly, continuously off kilter. Unbalanced. Crossing the universe on a tightrope with no safety net below. There is not enough time, or money, or passion or even interest to sustain it all perfectly all the time.

And darling, of course something has got to give.

But here’s the real truth.

We’re made for the ebb and flow. Just like the ocean. Just like the cycles of the moon. Just like the movement from dark to light to dark again.

We were born to shift and be selfish and howl and get messy. We were made to create beauty and to make crazy love and to find the bliss right at the center of our raw, aching parts. That’s the heart of life, the center of the paradox.

And it often says to hell with balance, because balance keeps us safe.

What if we halt the chase for this impossibly esoteric notion of balance and give ourselves to something a lot more earthy and true and real. How about we let ourselves be seduced by the beauty of disequilibrium? What if we agreed to let it all go, with a wild, lusty abandon.

Because that’s when we find that it’s all about the moments. Moments for pure creation. Moments of uninhibited sex. Moments of the sweetest mother baby love. Of pissed-the-fuck-off anger. And of come-here-right-now lust. Of falling head over heels in love with the world. Of feeling like the ground is going to give way beneath our feet. Of feeling free and wild and true, and of feeling chained and constrained and too heavy to get out of bed. And yes, in the midst of all this, even moments where it all feels like it’s sliding into the most exquisite alignment.

And before, you might have been tempted to call that balance. To try subduing it and controlling it and keeping it at all costs. But now? No.

You’re too fierce, too elemental, to unabashedly you to be something as mild and tame as balanced.  And that’s fucking hot. I’m pretty sure your partner would agree that you living in the fullness of your perfectly unbalanced self is a pretty good way to keep the love turned all the way on.

No balancing act required.

So don’t wait to fall off the tightrope.  Take a flying leap.  Trust your wings.  And the unsteady ground that greets you will be perfect and exhilarating and true.

Just like you.

Uncommon Sense is an ongoing series where I respond to comments and questions that stir my heart. They arrive by email, by text, by comment. They speak to something universal in me, and my response comes quick and sure. If you have something stirring in your heart and would like me to respond – please send me your message. I cannot respond publicly to all messages, but I do promise – with everything that I have –  that I will honor it and keep it safe.