Balance
Balance comes from within.
Well, everyone says balance is the key to an ideal, successful and happy life.
But what is that balance? How do we achieve it?
We have problems, jobs, commitments, bills, relationships, and responsibilities, more than any of our past generations ever had.
First, we have to acknowledge that we have a problem.
Identifying the problem is the first step to solving it and achieving a balanced life.
Life itself is fun. Whenever you forget that, you start to feel down and depressed.
Believe me, this pure moment of clarity came to me when I was at my lowest: lost, having too many issues with work, money, family, friends… living in a country where I literally had no one close to me. Nothing seemed like it would get better anytime soon. I had problems none of you could ever imagine. I was in complete chaos…
Then, it came
a moment of peace.
I chose to clearly identify my own options “what I could personally do” and also identified my problems, weaknesses, and the paths that could be good for me.
I realised the divine truth about balance:
It’s separation.
Yes, it is.
I was in a moment where everything felt chaotic and out of my hands.
Everything was hard and complicated.
But I chose to feel good, even though I had nothing going well for me and for no reason at all.
I started writing
everything.
I do this often.
I write tasks, scratch plans, diagrams, mind notes.
I was flying, I wrote down everything, started categorising them into three types:
Urgent,
Important,
and “Fuck No.”
Then I tagged each with four outcomes:
Life,
Work,
Connections,
and Future.
Future means accepting hard choices and eliminating short-term “winning” options.
I chose to make decisions for the upcoming years, not just months or seasons something most people avoid.
Once I had my problems identified, categorised, and sorted, I felt peace coming in like a cold breeze hitting my body… oh, sorry, it was just the air conditioner.
Separation is the real key to happiness and success in life.
Think of your life like your job: once you leave work, you leave all unfinished tasks for the next day, knowing you’ll come back to them.
As Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations: “everything that happens is outside of me, I am the observer. I allow nothing to get into my head and disturb me”
The biggest cause of depression might be this: we let one event roll into our entire life, like a liquid, stinky, green, viscous, jelly monster melting over everything, holding us in place, making us feel helpless.
So, separate your life’s genres as much as you can, Work has nothing to do with your personal life.
No matter how bad your workday was, you’ll still sleep in your own bed, unless you got into a car accident or the CIA threw you in jail, in which case, enjoy your new bed.
If you take a piece of that jelly monster home with you, your house will stink for nothing… and if you take your home’s toxic mess to work or social events, or whatever, you’ll stink up those places too, and if you’ve kept doing this for years, you’ve already melted everything, everywhere, all the time, and drowned into the depression abyss.
So, darling:
Clean your liquid, stinky, green, viscous jelly monster.
Eliminate the people who makes it melt even faster.
Start with:
- Identify
- Separate
- Order
- Achieve ✓
Conclusion:
Balance comes from within.
This method has worked for me every time I felt lost or down.
Observing your problems as if they’re outside of you will relieve your burden.
Balance is the key.
Separate your life’s tasks.
Distribute them according to your power, capabilities, and abilities.
And your will have the life you deserves, the one you worked for and dreamed of for years.