Balance is knowing your sun, your shade, and finding peace in the in-between.
If this little corner of the digital world is any indication of my mind, you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming it’s a direct representation of my state du jour. Regular posts correlate with bouts of contentedness or inspiration; long lags equate to a deep dive into my job. (The latter is an American malaise, as the Frenchmen in Emily in Paris love to remind the protagonist: we live to work, and as the daughter of immigrant parents, the obsession (or predilection?) is twofold. The European call it an unhealthy obsession; I only know it as dedication.)
Semantics only mask the root, though. To be so deeply ruled by anything is unhealthy to say the least. I romanticized independence as being career-driven and along the way, mistook hard work for imbalance. In my youth I worked relentlessly, endlessly—and while I still do the same, it’s out of hard-wired habit. I can’t seem to let go, but I also recognize the insanity: life cannot simply only be about work, can it?
It is (or so we believe it is), because work provides us the ability to indulge in life’s pleasures, big and little: the Heretic candle I burn, the essential oil blends I roll onto pulse points, the quad-shot dirty chai latte I rely on every morning. Yet when I list the things I think I love—the throughline is glaring at me as I type—these are things I’m forced into believing I need because I’m in want of balance. Do those things work? Sure. Are they beautiful to have? Of course. But before me is the grating truth: I live to work. Everything else is a band-aid to cope with the disproportionate focus on some larger entity instead of myself.
I don’t have an answer (yet), but I’m in search of some solution, some journey towards balance. Here I am in beautiful, sunny L.A.: what do I have to lose?
. . .
xx
Your turn. Thoughts?