35 K E E P ON ! We hear much about balance these days. It seems to be referenced somewhere on every magazine cover, business journal and self-help book, yet despite all the information available to us about balance, why do so many of us feel we’re on an endless and futile quest for balance all the time? Daily, we are faced with an onslaught of competing priorities between our work lives and our personal lives. In addition, our attention, focus, and energy need to be spread in many places at any given time. Let’s face it, life happens, and change is constant. How realistic is it to assume we can maintain balance? If balance means an equalization or a symmetry of parts, how often do you feel like there is even a remote possibility for equalization or symmetry of all the different things you do, people you know, and demands competing for your time and attention? Some may interpret balance to mean harmony within their personal and business lives. Harmony, simply put, is an agreeable combination of component parts. How often are all the parts agreeable? This leads to a possible theory on why balance seems so elusive and unobtainable…. Perhaps balance doesn’t exist! If balance doesn’t exist, then what? The point here is that we are much like a sailboat crossing an ocean. Like the ocean, each day brings us a change in conditions that affect how we move through the waters. On sunny days with light breezes, the boat is upright and cutting through the water at a steady and comfortable pace. On other days there is no wind, and the boat is stagnant and bobbing around aimlessly on the water. And yet, some days the wind is howling, and the boat is heeling over so far to one side or another that it feels as if it is going to eventually capsize. But sailboats almost never capsize, and even if they do, they always come back upright. Why? Sailboats have a very heavy, solid fin protruding from the bottom of the boat that is called a keel. The weight of the keel offsets the top heaviness of the boat and its sails. When wind fills the sails and blow the boat to one side or the other, the keel ensures that the boat will remain upright and buoyant. The interesting thing to note about a boat’s keel is that it is not separate from the boat but is integrated into the frame of the boat. It is as much a part of the structure of the boat as the parts you see above
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