One
of the most important principles of "living deliberately" - a phrase
that Henry David Thoreau used to describe his reason for moving to
Walden Pond - is that of BALANCE. Earthiness-and-spirituality,
humor-and-gravity, openness-and-boundaries, masculinity-and-femininity
and head-and-heart are examples of contrasting traits that need
balancing in our lives. Aristotle spoke of living by the "Golden Mean,"
and Gautama Buddha referred to such balance as "the Middle Way." Navajo
(Dine') people practice Hozho, an approach that recognizes BEAUTY as a
chief trait of balanced living. In our current era, there are several
ways in which our lives are generally very UNBALANCED. One is related
to the amount of passive entertainment we consume each day. This need
not mean simply TV shows, movies, or video games. It may also include
internet surfing, or an excessive reliance on social networking to fill
the gaping hole of unfulfillment we so often feel inside. As a balance
to this kind of passivity, we need a sense of discipline, in which we
limit these activities in order to focus on OUR OWN creativity and OUR
OWN inspirations, which depend on a degree of fasting from the more
passive approach to life. Indeed, creative thought requires a degree of
solitude as well. To this end, I find it helpful to set a daily limit
to the amount of time I will spend on internet surfing (say, 20
minutes), or - and this is a big one - a limit to the number of times
I'll check each day for Facebook messages and "Likes" (say, 3 to 5 times
a day). This kind of discipline helps us regain our poise and
centeredness. It also allows us, as earlier thinkers have pointed out,
to become a sort of human embodiment of a finely-tuned musical
instrument: neither too loose nor too tight. Such is the fruit of a life
of balance.
Photo: The Balanced Rock at sunset; Arches National Park, UT; September 27, 2013
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