Balance

Disclaimer: Many of the views expressed in the following blog will closely resemble the regurgitation of several hippie clichés and mindless platitudes.

Balance. Even the word itself is balanced, three letters equally hanging on each end of a nice, round vowel. Both noun and verb, you can almost feel the inherent harmony that exudes from every crevice of these seven letters. And yet, despite our instinctive knowledge of the importance of balance, it commands so little respect in contemporary mainstream American life.

Let me begin by openly acknowledging my own hypocrisy on this issue. I am, afterall, a budding therapist, and thus the ability to spew advice for others and ignore it in my own life comes naturally to me. Balance plays an interesting role in my life. As any graduate student can attest, some days there is simply no way to balance. After 14 hours in class, office hours, coffee, meetings, supervision, more coffee, sessions, homework, more meetings, and finally more homework, where would one find time for, say, sleep? Not only do we affect the balance of our own lives, but even the lives of those around us become unbalanced simply from being subject to our ridiculous schedules. And yet, despite knowing what consequences await us when we get out of balance, we "willingly" engage in these activities day in and day out.

This phenomenon is not unique to students. In fact, the American workday is impinging further and further into our home lives. Fifty to sixty hour work weeks are not uncommon. We all make little sacrifices, be it exercise, rest, reading a book, seeing a friend, or simply relaxing on the couch. At what cost do we accept these sacrifices? Therapists have a word for it: Burnout. The undeniable sense that resembles, as my friends at Lummi taught me, a case of the fuck-it's. We trudge through our days with the hope that at some point, we'll reach some ultimate point where we can finally put our feet up and declare that we've arrived. I believe such a place exists. Unfortunately, it's when we're dead.

I largely blame technology for this encroachment into our personal space. Remember about 15 years ago, it was an unbelievable technological feat to talk to someone on the phone while you were in the car? I remember at eight or nine years old riding with the Bolings and watching Tom talk on his car phone. How convenient that we could talk and drive! Now we of course know that we're not particularly good at either of those activities when combined, but the point is that with the expansion of technology into cell phones that took pictures, and then had instant messaging, and then could access email, and now I think they cook you breakfast, we accept every innovation at the cost of balance. My students are incensed when their Friday afternoon question isn't answered until Monday because I haven't checked my email. I like being helpful, and it sucks that they have to wait, but my space (my real space, not myspace) is becoming increasingly precious to me.

I'm reminded of a scene from American History X when Edward Norton, newly assigned to the prison laundry, hurries angrily through a pile of clean boxer shorts, folding and tossing them as he goes. This proceeds at the frustration of his work partner attempts to slow him down and get him to relax. He says something along the lines of, "It doesn't matter how fast you fold 'em, there's always gonna be more." No matter how long we labor, or how much work we get done on vacations, or how quickly we can respond with our iPhones, the work only ends when we're dead.

We must find a way to balance our lives. I covet the European sense of "holidays" that last a month. We take an extra Monday on a 3-day weekend (likely filled chores and catching up on more work) and delight ourselves in the freedom. But unless we actively create time for rest, relaxation, meditation, reflection, family time, or going outside, the work will continue to press into our 6 hours of daily life we spend away from our offices.

So I encourage you all to challenge your routines. How much of your life are you sacrificing at the hands of technology? How many games of Monopoly are you missing with your friends and family because you've got a few emails to answer? How many drives in the dark, movies on the couch, bowls of ice cream, or stories about life are you losing in the name of work that never ends? Put down the iPhone (after you finish reading this blog, of course) and go outside. Life is so much bigger than the next project. In the spirit of one of my favorite passages from the Tao Te Ching:

"Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity."

On Values

So, from the frozen Intermountain West, I've finally joined the bandwagon of this most blatantly narcissistic of online activities, projecting a stream of my consciousness into the blogosphere for the pure enjoyment of seeing my own disorganized thoughts on a webpage. I confess that I intend to use this space, and this inaugural post, to sort out the messy issues that I know cause me mental discomfort, and I suspect that I'm not alone.

Since moving to Utah in August of 2008, several important developmental issues have come into my daily awareness. More than anything, this phase of my life has been marked by uncertainty. I often feel that I'm going through another adolescence of 'storm and stress,' as my developmental psychological brethren will recognize. This period of ambiguity has highlighted an issue that I believe resounds with many twenty-somethings in contemporary America: Unclear values.

Most of you that know me know that I consider myself to be somewhere in the agnostic range on the religious spectrum. That is to say, I know that I don't know, and all theologies seem to me equally reasonable and absurd. I was reared in hellfire and brimstone Pentecostal church (probably the reason I identify now as agnostic). While I certainly enjoy the freedom to explore my spirituality and experiment with alternative conceptualizations of the world, I miss the certainty of religion. There are many days that I long for the sense of knowingness that comes with devout religiosity. Before my agnosticism I had very little doubt where my values were. Being the God-fearing Protestant that I was, I knew that my hard work would pay off in eternal salvation. I knew that what mattered was dedication and commitment to earning a living, providing for a housewife, and giving proper structure of 2.5 children. Religion takes the guesswork out of values. All one must do to know one's position on a particular issue is consult the myriad televangelists and biblical 'references' to said issue or meditate on WWJD.

In contrast, if there is anything my adult-adolescence has done, it is to cultivate a sense of disconnection from black-and-white answers. I increasingly find myself in situations of competing values. As our society and generation becomes increasingly areligious, our values are becoming even more nebulous. In my line of work/life, I bump into values on a daily basis. Whether it be my own or those of others, I am bombarded by differences in values and this bombardment is the source of much introspection. Once we've abandoned the nest of circumscribed and divinely-ordained values systems, how do we begin to examine and define those that must replace what we knew?

Our generation has embraced many media-endorsed values: Materialism, sexism, ethnocentrism, isolation, and self-deprecation, to name a few. We are force-fed that we 1) Do not make enough money to be happy, 2) Must make ourselves superior to all others to find happiness, 3) Will do so by subjugating someone else, 4) Are wholly alone in a cold and unforgiving society, and 5) Must be, talk, and display proper image lest we fall into social disfavor and marginalization. While clearly most would not openly espouse such unpleasant views of the world, we live them every day. We literally buy into our own enslavement because we can't find what really matters: Our values.

I don't bring this up as a sales pitch to religiosity. On the contrary, I think that we must endure our collective adult-adolescence to emerge healthy adults on the other side. As I sit in a community that culturally and openly opposes so much of who I am (a socially liberal, organic, bearded, cohabitating, veggie burger-eating, public transportation-taking apostate), I have hope that I will emerge with a clearer sense of how I'd like to walk in the world. I needed years to shed the small-mindedness with which I moved to college. I'm glad I've got a few more here to explore what matters. And while I often miss the ease having my values handed to me by a doctrine, I relish the challenge of redefining yet again the man that I am and the kind of partner, father, and professional I'll become. So I invite you all to try on some new ideas. Indulge in something or somebody unknown. Resist those waves that mean only to wear you down, and ride out the ones that take you to unexpected places.