Wound Too Tight

Balance is a difficult thing to achieve. Your life pulls at you from many directions, each of which requires a different kind and/or amount of energy. This would be great if what was easiest or most natural was also most important, but in fact you can't gauge the importance of a responsibility by how easily you take to it.

For example, I feel that I'm well suited to my work. It demands a lot from me, but for the most part I know how to apply my energy and see a result that I'm happy with. On the other hand, in some more complicated and important areas of my life, I'm often unsure where to put my energy and find that pushing is frequently the wrong approach.

And yet pushing is what I do well. It works with my job, and so more opportunity and responsibility come, which means I'm busier. Pretty soon I'm wound too tight and find myself trying to fit a square peg in a round hole in other areas of my life.

My father's gift as a parent (and human being) was that he knew how to back away, to live and let live. Paradoxically, this way of not-pushing and withdrawing energy is actually harder for me than taking action. It brings to mind the Tao Te Ching which I've quoted here before and should return to:

The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.