Balance

Clay Manes asked our group the other day what each of us saw as our greatest joy as a teacher and our greatest frustration. For me, I think my greatest frustration can be summed up in one word: balance. I struggle in the classroom to balance writing and literature instruction, to balance perfecting skills kids already should have and pushng them to explore new areas and develop skills they may not even know they have, to balance do what I know is effective and trying new things that might spark kids to reach new levels and grasp new concepts but might also completely flop. I struggle to feel I can always maintain balance in my life overall. I try to balance my personal passion, my family, with my professional passion, teaching and coaching. I struggle to balance a need to feel phsically fit with the time it takes from other areas to achieve that, as well as the fact that I really love food.
Balance is a concept that seems to be the key to happiness, or at least that is what the self-help books seem to tell us.  Easteran philosophy gives us ying and yang. Did you know it is more than just a trendy tattoo idea? The little that I know of the concept stresses balance in all areas of life. I beleive in Frankenstein, Shelley presented the importance of balancing the rational mind, spiritual soul, and emotional heart that lie within each and every one us and which drive society as a whole. Without the balance, the individual becomes a zealot who fails to see the consequences of his actions and will eventually drive himself to his own downfall. If society lacks that balance, we end up wtih science run wild without constraint of morals or humanity, or we fall into a world of superstition and myth that fears advancement and progress. The key to happiness, to sucess, to societal peace and contentment is balance.
However, I have to wonder one thing: who defines balance? We read about men and women who sacrifice personal relationships to become successful in the fields that they have choosen to dedicate themselves to. Athletes develop what many would say is unhealthy obsessions with their game of choice and preparation to compete at the highest level. Stories abound about coaches who have rolled cots into their offices to allow them to spend 24 hours a day foucsed on their craft, and literary history is sprinkled with tales of men who drove themselves for days, weeks,  months, and years to create great pieces of literature, searchng for ways to transfer the vivid worlds that existed in their minds to the written page, and eventually into the minds of those lucky enough to read those words written in sweat and blood. Some of these people were unhappy and regretful at the end of the day. Some, however, had found their own and their only path to happiness. They had found their own balance, even if it was not understandable to the masses.  Am I the one to say a man lacks balance in his life because he has chosen a computer, film camera, business career, playing field, or church to occupy his hours and days while I need my family, my classroom, my field, and my friends to feel content in who and where I am?
I suppose, as the Bard said,"There's the rub." (Hamlet is about balance too, isn't it?) How does one find balance when the definition of balance is not truly hard and fast, but, instead, must be as individual as a fingerprint or DNA?  Maybe it is as the old saying goes about art, or about pornography: "I'm not sure what it is, but I know it when I see it."
So, find your balance, for it is the key to happines, or at least it is supposed to be that key. I think, at times, I have found mine. At other times, I am not so sure. One thing is clear though: I definitely do know it when I see it.