"Patience, my dear. Patience."
If we don't eat enough, we spend our lives hungry. If we eat too much, we spend our lives fat and unhealthy. If we don't work, we spend our lives poor. If we work too much and have great success, we miss out on the best life has to offer.
Life is about Balance. Eating what we need and not overeating. Working with passion and vision and not making our profession our identity. There are many conceptual definitions of balance, and most of them make no sense. The best one I've heard of is that balance is the stalemate between two conflicting forces.
Earth orbits the sun at just the right distance to support life, humanity and hope. The orbit of the earth actually represents a balance between inertia and gravity. Should either force overcome the other, the earth and all we know would be destroyed within minutes.
In life and thought and worldviews, there are numerous competing and conflicting forces in play all the time. And, naturally, for humans the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. That's why we're all such a mess, individually, culturally and as a race.
We want what we don't have, and take for granted that which we have been given. To find balance is to find the point where our ambition is tempered by thankfulness and our desire for gain is met by our awareness that we already have more than we deserve.
The conflict between desire and contentment is a legitimate one. I can look around me and see opportunities for good everywhere. I want to bring that goodness to fruition and benefit from the process. I always want this. And at the same time, life really is good. I have a great life, and don't really want to screw it up.
The wisdom in the midst of this conflict is to realize that the world moves at God's pace. Remember the old song, "He's got the whole world in His hands?" I believe that to be true, and He is not letting go. So to attain balance that supports a healthy, happy, positive experience in this life, I have to find and stay in that place where I am walking at His pace; Not letting my ambition push me faster and not allowing contentment to morph into complacency.
A life lived out of this balance is tragic, and sometimes funny. The whole world is having a great laugh at the guy that predicted the Rapture yesterday. Not sure how he and his followers feel this morning, but tragic may not quite cover it. They should have realized that the world will end soon enough - at just the right time and in just the right way.
In the mean time, let's focus on being thankful for all that we have, diligent to take action whenever we have the opportunity to do something good and positive. and walk in the balance of patience at all times.