Finding Balance

When I was in college I knew a well balanced young man. He could walk down a three inch diameter hand rail like a genuine tight rope walker. He would leap into the air and perch sideways on the rail. After he was steady, he would turn ninety degrees, facing the length of the rail, and he would walk the 20 foot length, hands outstretched to keep his balance.

I thought it was an accomplishment to walk down a telephone pole sized traffic barrier in the parking lot of the local park. This friend topped that. I think he was a distant relative of the Wallendas.

He had what we all need -- balance.

Lately I seem to be able to stumble across any floor. But it isn’t that kind of balance we really need. It is that fine line between two extremes in ideals or actions. That is why the two party political system works so well. The polar opposites of liberal and conservative thoughts balance each other. Neither is right, neither is wrong. One is just as far from the truth as the other, and thus, they balance each other.

Let me use me and my wife as an example. She is drop dead gorgeous, I am ugly. She is a genius, I am not. I have an amazing sense of humor that she doesn’t appreciate. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Now someone is going to say, “But aren’t you alike too?” Well of course we are. There are certain moral absolutes that we both hold to, and in that way we are similar. If balance were required in all areas of the human condition then medical doctors would all be married to serial killers, police officers would wed bank robbers and drug dealers, dentists would marry soft-drink executives, and the Robertson boys (from Duck Dynasty) would all be married to vegetarians.

Let me challenge you to look for examples of balance in your neck of the woods and let me share one more example of balance with you. Last week was break from school here in our neck of the woods. Middlest came home with a huge packet of homework to do for her AP History class. Middlest had twenty-five hand-written pages to turn in, and she didn’t think she had completed the entire assignment. Two of her classmates, twin sisters, spent thirty hours on the same assignment.

I was flabbergasted and frustrated at the amount of work she was expected to do while on break. I fumed and asked, “What have you been doing in class?”

Middlest replied with that wry droll smile and wit she is famous for, “Watching movies.”

Yes folks, balance at work.