on Finding Balance in a Malnurtured Community
as otherwise, being aware of who you are
Let me preface this discussion by explaining the different meanings of the idea behind balance. If you are looking to be incredibly happy, finding balance isn’t for you. I think that often we have taught that the best balance we can find is to be overly exuberant or joyful in order to counter-act the negative in our lives. I don’t find this productive, I don’t find this healthy, and I definitely have never met anyone in this state that I would categorize as a balanced person. We have manipulated balance to mean smiling over our hurt, and because of that, we have been stuck in a perpetual loop of insecurity, unfulfillment, and an inability to be ourselves — or rather, we advertise the false self so we don’t have to deal with reality. Let me also say, I don’t honestly care if you aren’t being true to yourself. That isn’t for me to decide or judge on any front. What I will say is that I’m hopeful for most people to find their honest selves. Chris Heuertz talks and writes often about communities and their development and rehabilitation and he explains it incredibly well, often times the most dangerous parts of communities are those who do not know themselves well.
I can’t tell you that you aren’t yourself. My only insight is that you pursue that question yourself, because if you can not or do not, you run the chance of cultivating poison in your community. You run the chance of creating instability in your relationships.
So, on balance and cultivating a peaceful way of living. I don’t present this as an idea on how to be happy, or how to smile. I am giving you an opportunity to find balance in your life in a way that you can earnestly weigh what happens to you and own it. I am hoping to instill an idea that it is okay to understand who you are, that it is okay to know yourself well. In reality, balance is just an ability to honestly know how you feel about situations in life, and more than that, to be okay with knowing those feelings honestly.
I hope that when you are looking to bring balance in your life, that you don’t have to feel the need to put effort into being happy. Finding balance in your life should mean being in a position so that when you are in good circumstances, you are able to be happy — and when you aren’t, you don’t feel the need to stifle your reality and pretend, because that is borderline insanity. Balance means taking a deep look into all of the parts of your life, and respecting their existence. Understanding that they are happening to you, and finding peace in being frustrated that they are happening. Even if it means audibly announcing, “This is unfortunate.” Because if you can see the unfortunate and accept them, then you will have a greater opportunity to accept the fortunate. You will have more energy to allocate towards the greater than. I think we have fallen into a habit of spending an enormous amount of our time and energy pretending that everything is okay, and the problem this creates is that we miss when things really are okay.
So what does it mean to find balance in a malnurtured community? Unfortunately, it isn’t some bullet point list to follow. I think the best way to translate the idea is just to reaffirm that the best way to find balance is to know yourself well. This isn’t a key to success or making the most friends, this is simply an answer to the question, “Who am I?” if you, like me, have had trouble identifying your character. If you have had trouble “finding yourself”. If you are frustrated with surface friendships and uninteresting, useless conversations. If you are hoping to live honest with yourself and find earnest relationships and have the room, time, and energy to feel fulfilled when life is fulfilling. I have never felt anything as discouraging as the greatness of life through the bottle neck of my false self, and I genuinely hope that I can help others avoid the same.
