How To Live a Balanced Life

by Lester Rennard

A very important goal that we all should strive to achieve and maintain in our lives is balance. We are physical beings but we also have other components that are highly complementary that combine to keep us in check in order that we may live in a state of physical, mental, psychological, spiritual, emotional and social equilibrium; in addition to having a sense of purpose. Whenever these components are operational, we tend to enjoy living, be more content, be more at peace with ourselves and our external environment, be more hopeful and enjoy longer, healthier and more rewarding lives. If any component is out of alignment, we lose our sense of balance and are not able to live our lives at the maximum. Depending on the zone that is out of sync, we may find ourselves more anxious, less fulfilled, less hopeful and are less at peace with ourselves and others.

In this equation for equilibrium, the most obvious component is our physical selves. We should do everything in our powers to promote and maintain our physical wellbeing. This means eating regular, well balanced and nutritious meals in addition to consuming adequate amounts of pure water on a daily basis. Maintaining physical health and wellbeing also mean abstaining from introducing into ones system anything that is injurious to health such as tobacco, narcotics, unhealthy foods, and other destructive substances. There is also the need for regular exercise, sleep, rest and recreation.

To promote and enhance our mental component, we should exercise and educate our brains and constantly challenge ourselves by obtaining and applying knowledge through the learning of new things, ideas, processes, methods, skills and techniques to help us fulfill our purpose. When the brain is exercised by reading, wrestling with new ideas and concepts and by study and application of knowledge, we keep our mental powers sharp and well tuned to handle the challenging details and vicissitudes of our lives.

Our psychological health and wellbeing depend to a great extent on the content of our subconscious conditioning. In the language of information technology, we are told that the input of garbage will result in the output of garbage. What this means is that we are influenced by the content of what we are fed and what we feed ourselves psychologically. We are influenced by our cultivated and inherited tendencies that we act upon and by the environment of our homes and the institutions in which we place our trust and confidence.

What we think and believe about ourselves, what we accept about how others think of us affect our psychological state of mind. If the input is positive and healthy, we will have a healthy psychological balance but if the input is negative, we will most likely have an unhealthy and dysfunctional outlook that can do major damage to our prospects for successful living. In addition, we should endeavor to avoid feasting our minds on things that can inflame the lower passions and cause us to forfeit self-control. Such things as pornography, literature, music, film, the occult or any activities and practices that are demoralizing will have detrimental effect on our psychological health as they have a way of influencing our choices and behaviors. Instead, we should feast our minds on that which is virtuous, ennobling, positive and uplifting; while bearing in mind that whatever we think about and focus more on, whether negative or positive, we become like.

The spiritual dimension is one area of balance that many try to ignore as irrelevant and unnecessary. It is the one dimension that forms the axis upon which all others find their bearing and around which, they all revolve. We are created with what appears to be a spiritual vacuum that can only be filled whenever we engage in a vertical relationship with our Creator. This dimension gives meaning to our existence, gives us hope and provides for us a source for sustenance, support and encouragement in our times of need. When we attempt to avoid this dimension or try to fill the vacuum with anything other than that for which it was designed, our lives appear empty and without any deeper meaning or purpose.

We create emotional and social balance by the relationships we form on our horizontal level. We do so by developing different kinds and degrees of relationships to address our various emotional and social needs. We enter into relationships of love that form the basis of commitment and marriage between male and female to address the deepest and most intimate emotional and social needs for which we seek fulfillment. Other degrees of relationship provide friendship, support and a shoulder to lean on when the hammer of life delivers too much of a heavy strike and our anvils appear too inadequate to absorb the blows.

Whenever all these dimensions are in sync and our lives in balance, we find fulfillment and a sense of purpose and our lives are never without meaning. The key therefore to a balanced life is to develop and maintain a healthy, functional environment where all our physical, mental, psychological, spiritual, emotional and social needs are acknowledged and addressed appropriately.