Our relationship with the realities in our life can be quite a roller-coaster ride. It’s difficult for some to cope with not getting what they want. It’s very hard to admit we’re full of entitlements because it makes us realize how much we take for granted. When we realize how much we take for granted, we lose the luxury of feeling sorry for ourselves. People love feeling sorry for themselves, especially when they’re not getting what they want.
A lot of folks look for balance in life, as if balance itself is a checkbox on the bucket list. Instead of achieving balance, I like to look at it as continual balancing, and we’ll be wobbling and stumbling our entire lives.
If you’re younger and reading this, I’ll let you in on a secret: it doesn’t get easier as you get older; you don’t feel wiser, smarter, and more in control—you just get older. As long as we’re alive, we’re in a constant state of imbalance, and we have to actively work to try to center things out.
It’s hard to form a relationship with certain realities if they don’t line up with our fantasies, or the movies, or the fairy tales our parents told us when we were kids. And though it’s hard, we’ll still be better off fostering those relationships. We may even learn to enjoy the wobbling and stumbling, and be grateful for the opportunities to make mistakes and grow from them.
Death is one of the few things we all have in common, and that may make it our strongest bond. Living life and knowing the sand may be running out at any moment can lead to some spectacular moments.