So often we are encouraged to be mindful and to create balance in our lives: in our relationships, with our time, with our priorities, between work, play, love, commitments, etc.. We are encouraged to look at the balance sheet, the balance of power, to have a balanced body.

I think most of us have a very hard time achieving this “balance” in any consistent way. We might have it briefly but it seems to disappear, to get lost, to evade us, and we wonder why we keep making the same mistakes, the wrong choices, why we keep failing at achieving something that seems like it should be so simple. Balance? How hard can it be?

The answer is: Very, very hard, and the reason can be traced to the word itself.

Think about going to the doctor and getting weighed on one of those scales where the nurse moves the little marker until the scale comes into balance to indicate your weight. It is exact to the pound. Balance is a very small window and anything on either side of it tips it in one direction or another.

We tell ourselves these stories, or we believe the stories that we are told, that have us aspiring to achieve perfection, balance, to live in a tiny space in which any deviation causes a feeling of disappointment, frustration, criticism, failure or loss. Maybe balance should be less a goal than an awareness of a state that is neither good nor bad.

Balance is one aspect of a continuum. When we catch ourselves in a moment when all of the elements of life seem to converge perfectly in that place of center, that is certainly a rare thing and is worth noting but maybe life is more interesting, more challenging, and even more engaging when we take the pressure off ourselves to live in that small space and instead allow ourselves to ride the waves of the polarities.

We can bring awareness to whether those waves bring us closer to center or further away and, by figuring that out, we learn about ourselves and others, what we love and what we hate and, in short, who we are and who we strive to become.

When we allow ourselves to surf the ocean of life from a place of less pressure and greater freedom, we can enjoy more of the opportunities that life throws our way with less attachment and less self-criticism.

Letting go of the impossible goal of always living in “balance” will, amazingly, expand the spaciousness of what we perceive balance to be.