I've been thinking lately about all the elements of our lives that we struggle to deal with. We have all kinds of issues, all kinds of aspects of our selves, our homes, our jobs, our families & friends, & every other part of our lives, that we have to find some way of coordinating with all the others. In the end, it's about balancing all the elements of our lives with each other. I've seen it illustrated as a pie-chart, with 5 equal pieces:
Spiritual, Intellectual, Social, Emotional, & Physical.
(Some people describe a 6 or 7-part pie-chart, with Occupational &/or Environmental added on, but I think those can be folded into Intellectual & Physical respectively.)
There's no proper order to the 5 areas---they're all equally important aspects of lives in their own ways. And it's important that we fulfill each of those areas in our lives. If you're lacking or overextending yourself in any of those areas, your life is going to be out of balance. Things aren't going to be completely "going well"---you're going to feel like you're missing something, or aren't completely content or fulfilled in life. And if things are out of balance enough, you're going to feel very stressed & unhappy.
But I recently looked at this idea of "balance" more literally. Instead of a pie-chart, think of a set of balance-scales, with shallow dishes hanging off of a central point. But instead of a standard 2-part scale, think of a 5-part scale---5 shallow dishes, each hanging off of the ends of a 5-branched star, with the center balanced on the end of a central point.
Each of us fills these 5 dishes with marbles---the various elements of our daily lives. It's vitally important to keep the 5 areas in balance---if you put too many (or not enough) marbles in any given dish or dishes, it's going to unbalance the entire set of scales too far in one direction. If it's unbalanced enough, marbles are going to start dumping out of at least one of the dishes. We can only handle so many things (especially when other areas of our lives are lacking), & ultimately the things we can't handle will just fall by the wayside.
But if the imbalance is extreme or sudden enough, it can have outright volatile results. If you suddenly add a bunch of marbles, remove a bunch of marbles, or too many marbles dump out from an imbalance, the entire scale swifly shifts in the other direction, sending all the marbles into motion, rolling & moving around, & likely dumping out randomly & unstably in who knows what direction. You've quite literally "lost your marbles". When things get too far unbalanced, it can send your life into chaos, & suddenly you can handle very little until you get the bare necessities under control.
But there's another way of looking at things to consider---we can't always just "add marbles" by making efforts in each of the 5 areas. Sometimes we put in lots of effort, & it doesn't amount to much. Sometimes we're going about it the wrong way, sometimes we're doing things at the wrong time or in the wrong place, sometimes things just take a while to take effect, etc. Sometimes we don't know how to add more marbles to a particular area. And sometimes we need other people to add marbles for us.
Sometimes, no matter how much we want to add marbles to any given dish or dishes, it just doesn't happen. And when any dish is empty or close thereto, you can only add a few marbles into any of the other dishes before it sets things out of balance. No matter how much you want or need to increase the quality & content of any area of your life, you're not going to be able to take on or handle more than just a little if you're severely lacking in any one area.
Every one of us needs to "take stock of our lives" on a regular basis, looking at how we're doing at fulfilling & maintaining the balance in our lives. We need to learn how to recognize when we're lacking, how to change it, & when we're taking on too much. We also need to learn to reach out to others---when we can't figure out how to keep our lives in balance, & when we need others to help. And each of us needs to be willing to help others in balancing their lives---whether in simple support, suggestions, or advice, or in directly adding to their balance where they can't do it themselves.
If you keep your life in balance, it's amazing how much you can handle---just as an actual set of scales is limited only by it's own breaking-strength, a well-balanced life is limited only by time. When you stay in balance, you can lead an incredibly rich & fulfilling life. But when you're out of balance, your life can be surprisingly barren... So what are you doing to keep your own life in balance, & help balance the lives of the people you care about?
"Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony."
