Seeking balance

It's summer, and as I rest I am reminded of a recent peak in stress this year, when three finals commandeered a continuous 24 hours of my life and sleeping was put on hold. The academic year was an exhilarating and exhausting ride, but it's gone now, and already it seems shorter than just this May and June. The heightened pace of college contrasts with the lazy pace of the summer. I take two classes now with an hour break between them, little homework, unproblematic labs, and one laid-back teacher. It's just what I need. The summer is my counterbalance, my chance to cool down and take fresh breaths of air, even if only for a while.

Life quite literally hangs in a balance. Studies of matter, energy, and life frequent the concept: electrons negate protons, matter has its antimatter. Every action has a reaction, and every cell in the body keeps the fragile balance of equilibrium to sustain life. As students of academia, we often understand these concepts more easily than lessons from the Bible.

As Christians we should feel blessed to experience the guidance we receive from the Holy Spirit. I recently felt guided to the awareness that some of life's discouraging times are just an expected and unavoidable reaction to habits of imbalances. God teaches us balance in our lives in commanding us to keep the Sabbath holy, to rest one day after six days of labor or stress. At night we sleep maybe eight hours for every sixteen that we are awake. We know that for things to balance they don't have to be equal in number or intensity — reciprocation can be enough. Just as every crime has its punishment, a habit of asymmetry will have noticeable consequences. Our bodies feel it through tiredness after staying up late finishing college assignments, and often we pay that sleep debt the next morning in class, over weekends and during the summer. I notice that procrastination is just the result of a struggle between balancing the things we want to do with the things we have to do.

But balance is not just about time management; in life imbalance can be an unseen root to a growth of problems. We sometimes focus so much on work or school that we overlook a bigger picture — that because we are human we require a sort of symmetry in relationships, in stress levels, in school and work, in family and friends. God wants us to recognize balance, and to live by it. I remember Jesus' teaching of the golden rule, that we ought to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The familiar principle is the basis for most accepted moral law. Friendships take unexpected turns when this symmetry so ingrained in each of us is upset. God leads us to follow our hearts in making the most important decisions in life, to keep the balance that is the backbone for our rationality.

Christ teaches us that to cancel sin, we must seek repentance. We ask God for forgiveness and ease the weight of our transgressions. By avoiding the life of sin we would otherwise follow, we balance the scales of our good will. A burden of sin can push us to perform good deeds in the hope of offsetting sin's weight. I balance time I spend around others and for others with time I take for myself. I balance creative outburst and excitement with reflective, inward meditation. Through the discord of days, weeks, or longer spent arguing with a friend, I find balance in fun and laughter, in truly enjoying the moments that should always be cherished. Sometimes it's perfectly reasonable to take a break, to look at situations from the opposite perspective, and see if we can find harmony, sanity, or just a blessing in the balance.