Several years ago, I began to question what the real meaning
of wisdom was. I knew it had to be more than an IQ score, or the ability to remember
facts and figures. It had to be more than simply being able to make good
decisions.
Gradually, I came to realize that wisdom is about
recognizing balance. You see, in this life, there is a very fine line between what
benefits us and what depletes us. What adds and what takes away. What builds up
and what destroys. What brings us closer to our goals and aspirations, and what
leads us further away. And just to complicate matters, the fine line is
constantly shifting as we evolve and move through each experience.
I’ve come to see that true wisdom is recognizing balance
(and just as importantly, recognizing the lack thereof).
And then I came to one of the glorious paradoxes of life. In
order to enjoy, or even recognize “balance”, we must experience imbalance.
Regularly! We are constantly slipping out of balance and when we become aware
that it doesn’t feel so good, we make an effort to move back into balance or
alignment.
Here’s just two examples from my own life:
1.) During my adulthood, I have been both a food-lover, who didn’t
care at all about calories or ingredients. I loved and enjoyed food and
indulged wherever and whenever I felt like it. Cheesecake was my favorite food.
I’ve also been a health nut who read ingredient labels
obsessively and avoided a long list of foods, including MSG, sugar, wheat,
meat, yeast, aspartame, artificial colors or flavors. The thing is, both
extremes suited me for a while, but eventually I became aware that they were
holding me back – the indulgent me began to suffer all kinds of health symptoms
and lack of energy, and the obsessive me began to feel stressed and restricted
from the effort of maintaining such a diet in a culture where food is
celebrated and shared as a sign of love and hospitality.
I’m now somewhere in between, and still experimenting to
find that harmonious balance that enhances my body and my life, rather than
depletes them.
2.) During my late teens, I was spontaneous and carefree and
loved to party. During this stage, I made plenty of irresponsible decisions
(some of which I had to pay heavily for). I didn’t think too much about the
future because I was busy having fun today. Several years and life-lessons
later, I swung to the opposite extreme. I worked three jobs, saved my money and
set goals to own my own home and start a business. Eventually, both extremes
caught up with me and my physical health suffered because of it.
I’m still experimenting and learning that perfect balance
between aspiring for tomorrow and enjoying today.
The thing is, we cant enjoy or even recognize a sense of “rightness”
until we’ve experienced what a sense of “wrongness” feels like. Every “negative”
emotion or experience allows us to recognize and appreciate it’s opposite.
If we avoid making mistakes or try to drown out all “negative”
emotions, we are really depriving ourselves of the richness and depth of life.
How can we possibly appreciate emotions of love or joy, if we’ve never fully
experienced their opposite, or their lack, in our lives?
All of our imbalances, our “mistakes”, our “failures”, they
all add to our understanding of what is right for us. They act as benchmarks as
we seek to find balance, that wonderful sense of rightness and alignment that
can only be realized by first experiencing how unpleasant if felt to be all out
of whack. We learn by going too far to one extreme and discovering it didn’t
feel so good, and perhaps swinging back to the opposite extreme and discovering
(sooner or later) that doesn’t really work for us either. Through this learning
process, we begin to discover where the happy medium lies.
As we move through life, that happy medium changes with
every circumstance and experience, and it changes as we evolve and grow. What
felt good and right and balanced for me five years ago, may seem all wrong for
me today. This is why finding balance is a lifelong effort. No sooner have we
discovered it, the goalposts move and suddenly we are once again seeking that
sense of balance.
This is not disheartening. This is one of the utterly glorious things
about life. If it weren’t so, life would be stale and boring and flat. Instead,
we get to experience the exhilaration of the highs and the desperation of the
lows, and both give meaning to the other.
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