Yoda had it right: balance in life, as with balance in “the Force,” will reap dividends towards success and wellness.
Yoda, the Jedi master in Star Wars, was always concerned when he discerned a disruption in the balance of the Force. Of course, Star Wars is a work of fiction, but it was so successful because it touched on a reality: balance in life is essential for long-term success & wellness.
For myself, as someone with bipolar disorder, maintaining a sense of balance in my life is fundamental to my day-to-day living. When my illness was at its worst and before it had been properly diagnosed over ago, my life was in turmoil because I had no balance.
I would work fourteen-hour days in the office, and then go out whooping it up on the town, when what I really needed was a good night’s sleep.
At the same time, I had too many hobbies, and endeavored to keep them all going like a frenzied circus clown desperately spinning twenty plates on high poles. The amazing thing was that, in the short term, I was able to keep all the plates in the air, but because I had no balance I wasn’t able to keep it up consistently long-term.
Eventually, it all came crashing and I collapsed in an exhausted heap.
Pulling back to a broader perspective, it’s now obvious that human behaviour is disrupting the delicate balance of Nature and our planet. Climate change is the result of our destruction of the balance of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. And the consequences are beginning to be writ large in our environment, be it rapidly melting polar icecaps, drenching floods in California, or raging wildfires in Australia.
In short, our behaviour has become imbalanced, and we are reaping the consequences. It’s time to restore balance, and thankfully most of us are beginning to do so, although time is not on our side.
Luckily we have a hopeful example in the form of the ozone layer, which was severely depleted thirty years ago, but after we regulated CFCs recovered very quickly to everyone’s delight.
Let’s hope that the damage caused by greenhouse gasses can be repaired equally quickly.
It has been a journey for me, restoring balance in my life. When my illness was diagnosed, we tried to make it work in the office for a few years, but ultimately it was unfortunately the right thing to place me on long-term sick leave.
They then put me on a terrible drug called Olanzapine which conked me out and made me sleep all the time. It also made me fat and impotent, so there I was suffering from yet another imbalance.
It wasn’t until I came off Olanzapine about seven years ago that I was in a position to try to rebuild balance in my life.
I soon discovered that, if I took my lithium, got eight hours of sleep a night, and didn’t put myself into overly stressful situations, I could lead a relatively normal life.
As you will by now have discerned, I enjoy writing, and I currently write blogs and screenplays. I have achieved balance with these hobbies by managing the length of time I pursue them each day. For instance, I keep my screenwriting down to two hours each day and try to keep my blogs to about 700 words each, which translates into about one hour of daily activity.
That’s a great balance. It’s achievable day-to-day, and sustainable in the long term. It also makes my joy of watching cinema equally balanced and constructive. I try to go to the movies once a week, and I write up what I have witnessed in a weekly film review. That’s a great thing to do because it means I watch the films with acute attention (rather than switching off) because I know I am going to have to write a blog review about them the next day.
My blogging is equally balanced. I don’t write blog posts that are 2,000 or 3,000 words long, but a mere seven hundred words. I find I can say what I need to say in a succinct way by doing that, and I don’t become obsessed with my blogs. I also like the “surgical strike” nature of shorter blog posts. There is something extremely potent and satisfying about them.
Equally, I sleep with a notebook beside my bed. That way, if I wake up with a blog or screenwriting idea in the middle of the night, I don’t feel inclined to leap out of bed and write it up then and there. I can capture it quickly in my notebook and then roll over and go back to sleep.
In light of all that, it’s time for me now to exercise balance. This blog post is already over 800 words long, and it’s a Sunday and time to relax. I've enjoyed writing it, but now it's time to stop.
So, the balance dictates I sign off for today. But don’t worry, I will exercise discipline and be back tomorrow when I’ll be talking about diligence: yet another necessary tool in the pursuit of success & wellness.
Comments