A salud to mind
Balance. The one thing that keeps all aspects of life in order — relationships, work, freedom. These all require balance. You can’t have too much of one without sacrificing a piece of something else. At least that’s been my experience so far after going to the extremities in some of them.
I have always considered myself an introvert but in the past two years, the momentum has been shifting quite a bit towards extroversion. All my friends told me that they would never consider me an introvert but then again our idea of this concept may be different.
For me it’s simple — an introvert is somebody who needs alone time to recharge while an extrovert is somebody who gets the energy from being surrounded by people.
Regardless of this simple idea, it’s hardly ever that someone is a complete introvert or a complete extrovert.
One thing I noticed is that I can indeed get a lot of energy from being surrounded by people as long as those people share my energy. I’m also not a very shy person even though I was in the past.
It has taken me a lot of work on myself to reach this point — both understanding my needs and listening to other’s experiences. We’re all different. We all have our paths. Even a lot of people, often come to the same conclusions regarding life which can eventually bring them closer together.
One of the examples is grief. Everyone goes through this emotion at some point in life and it’s different for everyone. The death of a relative can release a very similar emotion which can make you understand somebody if you’ve both gone through the same process yet your connection and memories to the person you’re grieving are only known to you.
I always kind of romanticise life no matter what topic I talk about. It’s simply the way my mind works. I even romanticise the idea of death because I consider it an essential part of life, of existence itself.
Now let’s get back to the main topic of today — balance.
Everything I’ve talked about so far is related to balance. All life is related to balance. It took me a while to properly understand the impact it had on me. I had to experience burn-out at work, burn-out in a relationship and most importantly burn-out in life.
I’m currently living on a beautiful island where one of the easiest things to do is just go out and play some volleyball with strangers who are yet to become your friends. It’s simple and enjoyable. I feel no pressure of life whatsoever in those moments.
There is one little catch though — I have responsibilities which I can’t ignore for too long or they overcome this blissful feeling of peace. I believe I need them. I like the feeling of being responsible for things because I tend to be good at it. I’ve gone through some moments in my life which inflicted some scars on my mind but those scars are the reason I’m at this point of life right now. They are the reason why I understand people better, the reason why I understand myself better. Luckily the only person for those scars is me. I’ve been the one to put myself in vulnerable situations and lived through that.
I don’t cry often but almost every time I realise that I’ve accepted another scar, I shed a tear.
Those weren’t the tears of sadness, joy, anger or grief but the tears of existence.
Tears of existence.
I wrote this statement in my little journal a few days ago and I became emotional about it. Every time I say it out loud or put it on a piece of paper I get this weird sensation in my body. I can’t quite explain it but it just feels right.
All the joy, all the pain, all the sadness, all the gratitude are a collection of this. The ability to exist at this moment in time, in this place.
Again… this is my current view of the world and it will certainly evolve in the future. I still have many things to experience and discover about the world and myself.
Seems like I got sidetracked again. I’m just following my mind with this one and it seems to connect every single thought to balance.
What does that word mean to me?
It’s an incredibly complex structure of many parts of life that have to find a way to co-exist in the mind.
I know for myself that I need a balance between my extroversion and introversion.
I know that I need a balance between work and freedom.
I know that I need a balance between acceptance of both death and life.
I know that I need a balance between silence and loudness.
I need it to be able to relieve myself of many ups and downs and simply be able to exist (I call it organized chaos).
I fell sick a few days ago because I again misinterpreted this concept. I haven’t dedicated my mind to the time and space it needed for the past three months because I was operating on an autopilot. This allowed me to get all my tasks done, and be present but my mind didn’t have the time to process one thing properly before the next one happened.
Then I met somebody beautiful and time stopped. It was a monumental shock to my system because I couldn’t get that person out of my mind. I do in a way believe that this is often the only way for me to stop and reflect on life and my path.
It makes me revisit my ideas, priorities and sometimes even the core of my being. I still don’t know why but it must be one of the core parts of the existence of humanity itself. It’s not something to fight back against because it’ll do you no good. It’s not something you can just accept because it’s not just about you. That’s the perplexity of it — it requires patience and time.
There’s no one simple solution to it and that’s okay. Life is not supposed to be just rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes you have to take a step back and reflect — all the painful and all the joyful moments. In addition to that you have to look deep inside your mind and do some spring cleaning. What do you need and what do you want? Sometimes we can want something and not need it but still seek it.
Depending on the context that can be something simple such as wanting a coffee or something complex such as wanting a relationship.
The moment we need or want something related to people things become complex. People are complex. I was on a technical interview for a job a few months back and I’ll never forget it.
It was a discussion and more importantly a conversation with somebody who has already experienced a lot in life and he explained to me a simple thing about life.
There is this concept of hashes in programming. Each contains a list of keys and their corresponding values — we people all have the same keys. Might that be religion, football, relationships, work? The difference is in values. Not one single person has the same value but the more similar they are the easier it will be for those two people to connect.
That’s what makes us complex. We should never assume that somebody has the same values and treat others as blank pieces of paper.
Everybody has a story to tell.
And that will be the conclusion of mine today. There is much more I could talk about and I could make this piece more structured. Regardless, this is my current state of mind and I still need a bit of alone time to process some things.
Hasta luego.
