Sunday Journal, 325 words
Times for Imbalance
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
Looking
back over my life, I see times I did not live a "balanced life." I
also see that it was often necessary to be unbalanced. It is a myth to think we
must always be balanced.
Think
of your own life. Can't you see times you could not have done something
important if you hadn't been obsessive about it?
Going
to college, I worked full shifts – sometimes at hard labor – while carrying
a full load. I couldn't do something that "unbalanced" today. But at
that time it was necessary.
Running
for office, for six months I was perpetual motion. Lost 20 pounds. After
election day, I was so keyed up I couldn't sleep over three or four hours a
night for a long time. The challenge was over but my body didn't know it.
If
what you are working for is important enough to you, forget balance. Become
obsessed. To use an over-used expression, "Go for it!"
AFFECTIONATE
DETACHMENT
For
years I was turned off by the Buddhist idea of detachment. Sure, much of our
pain and disappointment is caused by attachment to pleasure and people and
things. But how do you cut off honest feelings for those things? And isn't
cutting off feelings the much-feared repression Freud warns against?
Jesus
also taught detachment from things and results. "Resist not...take no
thought," he said. Yet, he also taught us to love deeply and completely.
Can we love without attachment?
The
realization that made it start making sense to me was that two aspects of our
attachment are the real problem. Those two aspects are praise and blame. Much of
our attachment is a desire to receive praise or avoid blame.
Once
we cease caring much about what people say about us, we are on the road to
healthy detachment. We have such an affection for our own peace of mind that we
detach.
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