Finding Our Inner Balance
Many individuals living in this world do not know when to find “balance” in their lives. It is not that these individuals do not know how to find this balance because somehow they will, but the problem arises when many distractions in this advanced technological society become a preoccupation. These individuals are then faced with these distractions which throw their lives off-balance. Furthermore, is there a perfect balance in this world? How do we know if something is balanced? These are some questions that stem from situations that require us to find balance. A perfect example of this is when to balance our interests and the interest of others. There is no balance in our interests and the interest of others because depending on the situations we are in we will always result in instability.
The first situation comes from a religious perspective. We believe that there is a divine, unfathomable mystery that is not a creature among creatures, and his name is God. We worship this creature in wonderment and perplexity. Somehow we want to be like him and follow in his footsteps. We are guided by his holy spirit, and we have a manual that was passed down from generation to generation. This manual is the bible and it tells of great stories that happened before our generation came into existence. The bible also states the Ten Commandments. One of the greatest commandments is to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”. The faithful, diligent Christian will follow this rule. He will go through all obstacles to help others in need. Sometimes he will neglect his needs in order to help those who are unfortunate. Secondly there is a saying which was derived from Moses’ teachings, and it states “do unto others as they would do unto you”. Somehow there is an inner being or spirit that will drive you to help others. This urge comes from within us, and if we do not help others then we will feel guilty. When it comes to the religious perspective, we will do whatever we have to in order to satisfy ourselves because it feels good to help others and it is the “morally right” thing to do. We do more to help others than to help ourselves even though we are also gaining a little.
Secondly, mature students tend to focus more on their education and careers. They worry later about marriage and other events down the road. Competition in this situation propels students to push for their education and careers. They tend to put in more of their needs than others because if they are passive and subjective, and aken advantage of by the other students then they will crash and come out of the competing circle. It is called a circle because the competition never ends when trying an education and career. There will always be another person who would want to get what you have. Thus, in these situations, one tends to put his needs first. One of my teachers always advised us to be “selfish when it comes to our education”. Entering sixth form, I understood why she told us that. When it comes to the world of education, it does not matter how much good you do for others because they will never appreciate what you do for them; their eyes and hearts are blocked by that urge to be better, to be the best, so they will use people if they have to get there. A student will put his education and career before others’ needs.
Thirdly, individuals who are found to be in extreme situations are pushed to their limits. We do not know what the outcome will be; it all depends on the situation and the person’s morals. For instance, there were two explorers who were in a plane and they were going to an unfamiliar and remote jungle in the Amazon forest. The engine failed and the plane crashed. The two explorers survived, but the only resource left was a gallon of water. They did not know the area for they did not have a map. They had no choice, but to either share the gallon of water or fight one another for the gallon of water. This is similar to animals competing for scarce resources in their environment. In ecology, I learnt that competition is a negative to negative ratio. Neither organisms competing for the same scarce resource will benefit nor lose. The stronger organism that wins will still have to compete with other organisms that would want that said resource. The same goes for the two explorers stranded in the jungle. If they decide to fight then the winner will not benefit because we do not know if he will be injured by the other explorer, and we do not know if the winner will survive other predators in the jungle. Moreover, if they decide to share the gallon of water between them, they will not survive either because one may try to take advantage of the other by giving him less than half of the water but he believes that the estimated amount is half. Unless one of them convinces the other that for them to survive they will have to work together and come under some agreement to help one another because this is part of human nature. When we are faced with situations that we cannot handle alone, we will then seek others for help and work with them. It is balanced, but we are still doing it for ourselves because we believe that we must survive, and thrive.
As Albert Schweitzer said: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” There is no balance between helping ourselves and helping others. We will just have to know when and how to act in different situations. We will also have to know our limits. We are not perfect creatures. We all make mistakes so that we can learn from them.
