Is Balance Overrated?
Striving for Balance Vs Alignment
I have a confession to make. Until recently, I was pretty staunchly anti-balance.
See, there’s this whole fixation on balance in American culture that I find pretty toxic. As if once you’ve achieved the perfect work/family/friends/fitness/hobbies balance, you reach nirvana.
Striving for balance feels like this impossible goal, right up there with “emptying your mind” during meditation (not the point, btw).
And while I still maintain that striving for balance is often abused and leaves people feeling like they’re constantly failing, for a long time, my opinion of balance wasn’t very … balanced. Ironic, huh?
An ex-colleague of mine changed my mind.
One day, we were talking about career goals, and he confided that he doesn’t have these huge ambitions to become a VP or C-level executive (at least not right now), because he loves being able to sign off for the day and focus on his daughter. During the day, he’s able to take breaks and play tag with his daughter or take his dog for a walk. He’s content where he’s at, because he’s able to do his part to provide a comfortable living for his family while actually enjoy his family.
This is an example of healthy balance. And while I’m guessing M would tell you he hasn’t reached nirvana, I do think he’d tell you that overall he’s pretty happy.
So why did this conversation change my mind about balance? Because it made me realize I’d been pitting two concepts — balance and alignment — against each other.
I’ve made it a personal mission to strive for alignment with the Universe. To me, this means living in a way that feels true to my calling or, as new-age folks like to say, my highest and best. And alignment doesn’t always look or feel very balanced. In fact, people who are following specific callings or passions are often sacrificing a lot of other wonderful things in the process.
But, in talking to M, I realized that a life full of sacrifice isn’t for everyone. Sometimes maintaining balance is someone’s calling.
What balance and alignment mean is different for everyone. While one person might be living a balanced life and still be living your highest and best, another person might be called away from balance.
The first time it really hit home that pursuing a calling had consequences, I was watching the documentary Chasing Ice about photographer James Balog. Balog made it his mission to photograph the melting of the ice caps in an attempt to show the world the dangers of climate change. And he spent years traveling to the far corners of the earth to make it happen.
The consequences: multiple knee surgeries, months away from his wife and daughters.
In the documentary, Balog laments the fact that his daughters were growing up without him as he traveled. But he also explained that his work was for them.
I remember leaving the theater wondering about his choice. Was there a right choice? Would his daughters grow up to resent him? Would that make it the wrong choice?
More recently, the amazing film Nyad showcases another person who’s following a pretty extreme calling. The film follows the long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad who becomes the first person to swim the distance between Cuba and Key West (over 100 miles) without assistance. And she did it in her 60s.
Not only does Diana sacrifice a lot to make this happen, but so does her best-friend and coach Bonnie. More about this story below.
When we set balance or alignment as a goal, I think it’s useful to understand what that might mean. Here’s an overview of my take.
Comparing Balance and Alignment
Striving For Balance: The Positives
All aspects of yourself that you value can be heard and cared for.
Setting a goal to live as a whole person.
Striving For Balance: The Negatives
Possible self-judgement for what you’re not prioritizing or accomplishing.
Can be used as an excuse to stay stagnant.
Striving for Alignment: The Positives
Intentional choices in line with one’s values or ultimate goals
Striving for Alignment: The Negatives
Possible self-judgement for not knowing what your ultimate goals are or what your calling is.
Can cause feelings of insecurity when you’re “living in the questions,” as Rilke would say.
Can justify shitty behaviors like not taking care of yourself or not honoring other commitments.
Both Balance and Alignment
Benefit from intuition
Require self-compassion, curiosity, and grace
Are imperfect paths and lifelong journeys
Balance Isn’t a Dirty Word … But Careful How You Use It
In Real Self-Care, Dr. Pooja Lakshmin quotes Dr. Alexandra Solomon: “There’s no such thing as balancing work and family. This language points us toward a problem to be solved, a destination at which we arrive. It is far more accurate to say that relationship with partner, relationship with children, and relationship with work exist as an ever-evolving, dynamic, and noisy conversation.”
In other words, if you feel imbalanced, and you’re judging yourself for it, you’re probably missing the point.
It’s human nature to seek balance, and the feeling of imbalance helps indicate that something needs adjustment. But something will always need to be adjusted. The trick is to stop the judgement along the way.
Sometimes being imbalanced isn’t a bad thing!
For most of us, there will be seasons of life where we need to be imbalanced to achieve a goal or simply survive. And for some of us, a calling may require continued sacrifice, continued imbalance. In this case, it’s all about accepting it, owning it.
Calling/Alignment can negatively impact people we’re close to
If living in alignment with a calling or major goal often requires sacrifice, the frustrating part is that we don’t always carry those sacrifices alone. Balog’s family made sacrifices while he traveled. Were these sacrifices fair?
I question how to honor and maintain relationship agreements in these situations, and if it’s fair for others to suffer for our dreams. Obviously, other adults have agency and can choose whether the relationship is worth continuing. But children can’t.
As I write this, I’m living in Indiana, hundreds of miles away from most of my closest friends and partners. I’ve chosen a season of solitude to finish my memoir, which is taking much much longer than I anticipated. I rarely feel truly debilitated by loneliness, but I deeply miss consistently seeing my loved ones. I miss conferences and kink events, which I rarely attend. I miss community.
I’m so incredibly grateful for the people in my life who accept why I choose solitude. But this also means I’m not able to be there for them when they need me. When two good friends were going through rough times in Chicago, I felt guilty that I wasn’t nearby to help. Was this required of our friendship? No. But I acknowledge that I’m choosing my writing over my friendships, and sometimes there’s a price to pay for that.
Do you have a calling? Check your ego.
One of my favorite aspects about Nyad is how the film portrays Diana’s ego and how she learned to respect her team. In the beginning, everything was all about her, and others were privileged to help her achieve her goal. By the end of the film, she recognizes how important her team is, as well as the sacrifices they all made to help her.
From my personal experience, believing I have a calling causes this weird mix of pride, anxiety, fear, and an unending sense of urgency. I think choosing a calling requires you to somehow accept that you’re special, and I think that’s a good thing. Like you have to accept that in order to accept everything a calling requires of you.
But accepting you’re special can so easily lead to thinking you’re “better than,” which backfires real fast. The antidote for this is radical compassion: practicing how to see the beautiful specialness in everyone (which isn’t always easy). So being special isn’t special.
And that general disdain for balance? Yeah … that was my ego. one of the things I recognized when I spoke to my co-worker is if I truly believed that having a calling was somehow better than prioritizing balance, I was saying that I was better than him, which simply isn’t true.
My opinion might change tomorrow (and it should)
I own that I have a very very personal understanding of what balance and alignment are. And they’re prone to evolve. Do the terms mean something radically different to you? That’s great. And I’d love to hear about it.