Has anything ever been so universally praised, and at the same time, as universally lacking as balance in life? Ask any doctor, any psychologist, practically any person, and you’ll hear nothing but praise for the concept of living life in healthy balance—in nutrition, in work, in relationships… in everything, really. Yet let me put an honest, and perhaps a difficult question to you: how often do you actually feel really, solidly in balance? What percentage of your life would you say is lived that way?

Well, I can’t actually hear your answer, but I can guess. It is curious, though, isn’t it? It would be one thing if everyone disagreed on what balance was, what it looked like, but in great part that is not the case. We recognize it easily when we see it or feel it, and there is truckloads of great advice out there describing what “balance” in various spheres of life should be. Even so, it seems that actually living it is nearly impossible for most of us. And when we do manage it, by luck or by dint of great effort, we seem to waste no time screwing it up.

Now, I screw up constantly. More than anybody I know—so I’m experienced. But I think I’ve come to understand a fundamental truth that is often overlooked… or call it a different perspective that may allow you to not only find balance, but keep it. Because I don’t think it’s supposed to be as hard as we are making it. I think we are overlooking something basic.

The Habit of Health

Metaphors are a useful tool here, so let’s just use the most obvious one. Think of physical balance, as when a child learns to walk, or an adult wears roller-skates for the first time. At first, you have no real sense of balance, you simply react to its absence. When you feel yourself leaning too far to one side, instinct kicks in and you try to correct. The problem is, you don’t have a strong sense of what you’re supposed to be correcting to. You just react—blindly, and often too far. So you end up staggering to keep your feet underneath you and end up on your butt.

I think this is similar to how a lot of us go through life. We don’t have a strong sense of what good balance feels like, we just react to whatever lack of balance we currently feel, and end up constantly off in one direction or another. Simply put: we have not found our center.

Why is this the case? We all learned to walk many years ago. We got the hang of that after a while. Why do we never seem to learn when it comes to this more abstract, spiritual balance? There’s no easy answer to this question, except perhaps that it’s because we don’t know what we want.

“The unseen is always the parent of the seen,” according to Dr. X. The balance of our lives does not depend on physical circumstances, but on the internal: the mental, emotional, and spiritual. But most of us don’t naturally think that way. We constantly reach for one circumstance or another to try to satisfy ourselves—and most of the time, we end up reaching too far in the wrong direction. Again, because we don’t know what we really want.

What Do You Really Want?

There aren’t many concepts that could be said to be a universal “center” of balance in our lives. Love would probably be the most common one, and I do agree … but even so, you can’t quite stop there. Why? Because different people have very different ideas of what love means, of what we owe to each other and how we ought to behave. And while there are certain concepts, like “do to others as you would have others to do to you,” on which most of us can agree, it isn’t enough to agree with it in theory. That’s not a stable enough foundation for lasting balance.

More than anything, what you need is truth. Truth about the nature and the meaning of life, which is strong and stable enough to serve as a personal commitment. This, I believe, is meant to be our “center” in all things. Just like finding your balance on your feet when you were still very young, you don’t choose it, and no one can do it for you. Oh, you might here someone else talk about their philosophy and agree with it, but you must be careful not to abdicate your decision-making. It has to be yourdecision, and if it comes from someone else, then you had better be sure about why you agree with them.

People were meant to live their lives for a purpose, I’m convinced. It reminds me of that quote from Alexander Hamilton: “Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything.” How appropriate this is to our discussion today! Balance means stability, after all. It means the ability to hold a purposeful position, even against external influences and the demands of our own movement. How could we expect to achieve it without a foundation? Without first settling on what our purposeful position is?

Real Fulfillment, Meaningful Pain

Pain demands a response. That’s one of the fundamental human truths, and a big part of the reason why maintaining balance in life is so difficult. Life is full of pain, even for exceptionally blessed people like me. For many others, it is even more so, and often through no fault of their own. The trouble is that no matter the source, pain tends to push people into making bad decisions. Most of the stumbles and the imbalance in our lives can be attributed to either attempts to escape pain, or attempts to find meaning in the wrong places. Both are a reaction to the negative, instead of a search for the positive.

We will never be able to avoid pain completely—not in this life—and trying to do so at all costs only tends to propel us further out of balance. But by seeking true meaning, and pursuing it in love, we can find a life worth living, pain and all. Not only does this get us the fulfillment we’ve been missing, but the pain which comes with it is frequently less, and always more bearable.

Have a blessed, wonderful day!

Dr. Alex Loyd