Tag Archives: balance

The Power of No

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For the last decade or so, I’ve been steadily subtracting.

As an experiment in reduction and elimination, I’ve taken the long list of life’s accepted “essentials” and pared them down to the most minimal survivable items.

Many would see these choices as psychotic rigidity without real purpose. But I have always lived on a narrow spectrum of black and white, so floating in the gray never held much appeal.

Some decisions are grounded in practices of optimizing health. Others are stubborn refusals to double back once I’ve started down a particular course. Either way, the list is constantly expanding, and there is a real risk that, given enough time, I may ultimately be left with nothing.

Still, I plod along, desperate for some modicum of control or a sense of peace in an increasingly uncontrollable, chaotically unsettling world.

Mental illness, in any of its various constructions, is a constant wire walk. The best we can do is build blocks of balance from whatever tools are readily available…and these are mine, for now.

Diet: No meat. No dairy. No nuts. No soy. No bananas. No avocados. No tomatoes. No peppers. No onions. No caffeine. No soda. No fast food.

Lifestyle: No sex. No drugs. No alcohol. No smoke. No prescription medication. No gambling. No hedonism.

Personality: No jealousy. No envy. No greed. No fear. No lust. No easy acquiescence. No easy sleep. No vanity. No addiction. No laziness. No breaks. No brakes. No self-indulgence. No self-forgiveness. No self-esteem. No sustained sense of hope. No hysteria. No indolence. No cowardice. No egotism. No profligacy. No pomposity. No inanity. No misinformation. No wastefulness. No tolerance for animal cruelty, of any kind.

This may all be madness…or just a dangerous form of mad science.

Time will tell.

Just say no.

Adolescence Interrupted

My World Never Feels Safe…And Now I’m Right

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The roads are all lined with eggshells. Tiptoes and feather steps, thinking back to a time when sidewalk cracks were the only items on a list of things to avoid.

Leaving a house full of physical walls to venture outside into a world of imaginary ones is a nasty little mind trick to navigate.

For many years I have maintained some semblance of sanity by following a specific series of patterns, habits, and concocted restrictive rules to live among the “normals,” and do my best to blend. Now, everyone else has systems, and there’s just too much competing static to cut clean s-curves without a face full of powder.

Monkey bar-swinging from one brain surgery to the next has saddled this lanky lad with a backpack full of trauma, and it’s a daily challenge to keep those shoulders back. But when that carefully calibrated balance is disrupted, and uncontrollable variables are added to the recipe, the already-crispy cookies in the oven tend to emerge blackened and burned.

If the personal side effects of this historic snapshot are nothing more than increased worry, discomfort, and agitation, I will consider myself incredibly lucky. Countless victims of this global tidal wave would gladly trade everything for a little increased anxiety.

Nervousness is temporary. Asphyxiation is not.

This is Chapter One. We are wading into dangerous waters, and we’re not even waist-deep. Stay vigilant. Stay clean. Stay supported.

Stay safe.

Adolescence Interrupted

Health Is Wealth

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“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”                      —Buddha

Balancing our mental, physical, and emotional well-being is a lot like Rocky chasing the chicken. As soon as we think we’ve grabbed it, we get pecked in the hand and feel like fools for ever believing we could master the untrainable. It often feels like an exercise in futility, and the spoils never seem to match the energy output. But we return to the coop, again and again, hoping this time will be different than the last.

But the “fowl” in pursuit may look less like a tangible target and more like an albatross necklace.

We are regularly trying to outrun, track down, and redraft our inherent nature, hardwired DNA, or natural predisposition. It’s tough to ditch an adversary attached at the cellular level. But we do our very best to challenge Mother Nature at every turn, confident that determination can trump reality.

This elusive attempt at leveling the mogul-strewn mountain is as comfortable as a marathon run in quicksand or climbing a rungless ladder. Being picked up and dragged back to the starting line after every failed attempt to finish is deflating and disheartening.

However, there are steps that can be taken and chessboard strategies that can be implemented to put us in the most favorable possible position. Compromise and a sense of grounded realism are comfortable bedfellows, especially when our knuckles are beaten and bruised from a constant battle with the beak.

Adolescence Interrupted

Scales Without Balance

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“If we think of life as a kind of Olympic games, some of life’s crises are sprints. They require maximum emotional concentration for a short time. Then they are over, and life returns to normal. But other crises are distance events. They ask us to maintain our concentration over a much longer period of time, and that can be a lot harder.”                                                                                                    —Harold S. Kushner

I am deeply troubled these days. I’m blinded by unjust suffering on a global scale and I watch the escalating pain of family and friends from a very personal perspective.

How did our calibration fall so far out of balance? Why must genuinely sweet souls be forced to endure sustained agony while those with evil, black hearts are permitted to swim free in a sea of avarice and insensitivity?

I will never understand the fundamental human hardwiring that values greed and excess over common decency and the general welfare of others. It is a pandemic virus without a cure, and it’s systematically infecting our brains with frightening speed and alarming accuracy.

So…why do bad things happen to good people? Is there really no karmic system in place to level the playing field? Is everything simply randomized chaos without even the hint of some justified cause or effect?

This nightmarish scenario certainly frames society in a context that would cause the vast majority to squirm in their seats, and that’s not even taking into account the titanic religious implications in the lives of those who truly believe there is a grand master plan at play.

As hard as it might be to wrap your head around the fact that we’ll probably not get to the roots of the “meaning of life” debate during this short post, it’s worth considering that our own backyards are the only ones we can clean, and acts of kindness and generosity can easily be distributed one day (and to one person) at a time.

Your pain is never as severe as someone else’s. Your financial situation is never as dire. But your success is never as impressive, and your status is merely an illusion devised by your artificially-inflated ego.

Take a step back and take a step down. We are forgoing a sense of community and compassion at a disturbingly breakneck pace. It might be wise to take stock of what’s truly important…before it’s all lost.

Adolescence Interrupted

Chasing a Moving Marker

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When I’m left with my own thoughts in the quieter moments of the night, I can’t help but look at the miles I’ve logged on this marathon and wonder where it ends. Is there some perfectly painted finish line that will welcome me with open arms? Or is every step its own achievement?

Some would posit that if you wake up in the morning and take a deep breath, it is a reminder that you are here for a reason. Every day is a gift, each moment another opportunity, etc. I suppose there’s some merit to that sentiment, but a proponent of the macrocosmic perspective would argue that the mundanity and daily minutiae are worthless without some greater result. It doesn’t much matter how many hours you spend in the woodshop if you never make a chair.

I suppose I’m fairly split. While finding satisfaction in daily victories is critically important to properly nurture the soul, looking back at a life that didn’t create some substantial impact would feel like a monumental waste of roughly eight decades. Perhaps, like most things, there’s some balance to be struck.

Also, the actions we take and decisions we make may not permanently transform the planet, but they can deeply affect someone else’s life—for better or worse. I’m reminded of the Dr. Seuss quote:

“To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.”

Sometimes our choices have a ripple effect that we’ll never know or even understand.

So maybe it’s best to stop looking back at those starting blocks or too far ahead at some figurative finish line. Even if the present moment is wrapped in doubt, pain, or regret, it’s worth acknowledging…before it’s gone.

Adolescence Interrupted 

Nurture Thy Soul

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Every once in a while, the static seems to settle and we’re able to lock into moments of perfectly positioned peace. Granted, this is not a regular visitor. But when we can turn down the volume of that incessant buzzing in the backs of our brains to experience a few drops of weightless, unadulterated alignment with our surroundings, those fleeting flashes are worth their weight in gold.

This fulfillment-making formula doesn’t require complicated planning or lavish accommodations. It’s simply a matter of exposing the root of what makes us smile, and then letting it get the sunlight it needs to grow. This varies wildly from person to person, and sometimes the simplest set of variables generates the most significant results.

Personally, I know a perfect balance of music, film, safety, isolation, and an empty to-do list can rocket me to a sweet spot of contentment faster than a rowdy party or noisy get-together, but everyone is different. I also savor the depletion following exercise-induced highs. The more introverted energy that can be generated from easy, unrestricted breathing and the simple gift of letting my body buckle from exertion, the more it resembles a reward from work well done.

Perhaps I wanted to write about this particular recent event because it is such a rare phenomenon. It’s hard to remember the last time I felt like I could lower the defensive shields and clear my mind. It takes a very specific set of circumstances. So when that wave of pure tranquility unexpectedly washed over me a few days ago, its presence was noted.

Unfortunately, like all waves, it receded as quickly as it arrived. But the cognizance of its normally yeti-like existence helped reorganize the possibility in my mind for its return. Life can’t be all candy, but we should try to take the taffy when it’s offered.

Adolescence Interrupted

In Fits and Starts

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bumps

Momentum is a dynamic thing. Valleys frequently follow hilltops, and there’s little we can do but ride the coaster. Positivity, focus, and motivation are excellent emotional catalysts, but the globe spins to its own drum beat, regardless of how many laws of attraction are added to our daily to-do lists. We can angst and fret and project and stress, or we can release what is beyond our control and wait to catch the next wave. The universal laws of balance have a way of working themselves out.

This is a classic “practice what you preach” cautionary tale, and it’s one I should shoot into my earholes post-haste. Who are these people who think about impending events the day before they occur, instead of months in advance? How are these unicorns bred to simply and casually adapt to unforeseen circumstances, as opposed to methodically planning every conceivable attack plan, should a situation arise that upsets the setup? Where is this flow that everyone is going with, and how can my brain get excited about taking a tube ride into river rapids? It all feels wildly precarious, yet many people seem to find the firmest ground when their feet aren’t planted.

Smooth roads are an illusion as tangible as total control. A burst of good news is routinely trailing behind discouragement and vice versa. Perhaps tunnel vision, eyes-on-the-prize thinking is the safest means of travel. An ostrich with its head in the sand never feels the rain fall.

But it never sees the sun rise.

Adolescence Interrupted