Like most Americans, I spent a fair amount of time watching the Olympics a few weeks ago. We engage in the bi-annual event of viewing sports that we otherwise tend to ignore. Due to our patriotic inclinations, we cheer for our water polo and volleyball athletes with the same zeal that is generally reserved for our favorite college football or major league baseball teams. Thanks to our successful women’s gymnastics team, we fretted over tiny teens vaulting, somersaulting, and swinging their way to the gold. But certainly the most angst producing of gymnastic events involved the balance beam. As they teetered their way to the medal stand, we wriggled in our easy chairs lest a loss of balance would cost the performer tenths of a point. Even more anxiety generating was the fearful potential for a fall off the beam itself.
Once again, you are probably wondering, “Where is he going with this one?” Let’s see if I can confuse you further by introducing a new term to the discussion: homeostasis. The simplest synonym for homeostasis is balance. Another might be congruence. In any case, homeostasis has applications on a physical plane or on a personal lifestyle basis.
Physically, our body naturally seeks homeostasis: balance. Imagine that, in the middle of the night in January, your partner decided that the bedroom is too warm and opens a window. The room temperature drops 20 degrees. Without awakening, your body’s desire for homeostasis springs into action. What does it do? It shivers, increasing blood flow and heart rate. Perhaps, even while still asleep, we may instinctively pull the blanket back over us: homeostasis in action.
Homeostasis, as it applies to our personal lives, is even more important. But we probably do not react as automatically, or appropriately, with our life choices as we would in that cold bedroom. And maintaining balance in our personal lives is more complicated, and failure to do so will cause more problems than icy toes or fingers in the bedroom.
Although our life’s circumstances are more complex than a three-minute balance beam exercise, the course correction is the same. What does a gymnast do to avoid a fall? She leans in the opposite direction.
The psychological theorist, Alfred Adler, tells us that we all have five major areas of focus in our life: friendship, love, occupation, spirituality, and self-understanding. A functional life involves maintaining a balance among those five variables. The challenge of life management is to avoid “leaning” too far in the direction of one’s career, for example, at the expense of our family. Or investing too much time and energy in currying the favor of a friend or acquaintance without recognizing why that approval is so important to us, perhaps at the expense of nurturing more enduring relationships.
Like an Olympian on the balance beam, we should strive to stay “centered,” to deftly juggle the elements of our life in our best interest, as well as for those we value most.
Homework for today: Take an inventory of the elements of your life, perhaps using Adler’s list as a guideline. Are you centered? Are you leaning too far in one direction at the expense of another? How can you correct this?
As expressed in earlier writings and on the website, Homer tells us, “The journey is the thing.” The pursuit of balance, of homeostasis, is never ending. And that’s OK.
In 1976, the Romanian gymnast, Nadia Comaneci scored a perfect “10” on the balance beam for the gold medal. Even a casual observer, watching a re-play of that unprecedented achievement, would see the routine Nadia performed as comparatively simple and basic in contrast to the complexity of this year’s gymnasts. Apparently, progress and the pursuit of excellence suggests that gymnasts “will never get there” – that there is always more to be achieved.
So it is with our life. We will never achieve total balance or homeostasis. And that’s OK. Once we grasp that concept, life continues to be exciting, satisfying, and a rewarding challenge.