Finding Balance

This program is about finding balance in our lives. We consider what a balanced life means to us, examine times when our lives seemed particularly in or out of balance, and think about the steps that we have taken at times to bring our lives more into balance.

Member Preparation

In preparing for this session, read through some of the following quotes and think about what a balanced life means to you.

"The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise [wo]man." - Euripides

"There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness." - Carl Jung

"If I'm confused, or upset, or angry, if I can go out and look at the stars I'll almost always get back a sense of proportion. It's not that they make me feel insignificant; it's the very opposite; they make me feel that everything matters, be it ever so small, and there there's meaning to life even when it seems most meaningless." - Madeleine L'Engle

"A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life." - William Arthur Ward

"If you could live without limits, if you could do anything, go anywhere, command anyone to do what you wanted, would that make you happy?" - Rabbi Harold Kushner

"In today’s speeded-up ways of working and living, slowing down is an important spiritual discipline. In the modern world we are conditioned to live faster and faster with no time for inner reflection or sensitivity to others. We are only beginning to see that speed makes our lives tense, insecure, inefficient, and superficial." - Eknath Easwaran

"The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture." - Benjamin Franklin

"I acknowledge that the balance I have achieved between work and family roles comes at a cost, and every day I must weigh whether I live with that cost happily or guiltily, or whether some other lifestyle entails trade-offs I might accept more readily. It is always my choice: to change what I cannot tolerate, or tolerate what I cannot—or will not—change." - Melinda M. Marshall

"Live in the present. Do the things that need to be done. Do all the good you can each day. The future will unfold." - Peace Pilgrim, peace activist

These questions provide ways you may want to approach this topic. Remember to focus on just one or two of the questions, if you choose to use them, as this will allow you to explore the topic in more depth.

  • How important to you is balance in your life? Is it something you strive for? If so, what do you try to balance?
  • What do you consider a balanced life? Can a life be balanced over the course of a lifetime? Is it possible to keep everything in balance at any one point in time?
  • Have you had a time when a happy event created an unbalance or an unhappy event led to more balance in your life?
  • At times when your life has felt out of balance, did you try to bring things back into balance? What steps did you take?

Further Exploration

  • “Dynamic Balance” by W. Frederick Wooden, UU World (November/December 2000).