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An Unbalanced Life is one not Worth Maintaining

作者: 淼淼    人气: 2339    日期: 2014/6/17

An Unbalanced Life is one not Worth Maintaining Or how I learnt how to balance my life via High School and the IB I don’t know if Astrological signs are right or not. However, I have always thought mine were particularly accurate, even down to the lucky numbers of the month. Selective bias or not, my own star sign-Libra, the scales always served as a marker for my behaviour. I would always take into consideration every aspect, every positive and negative outcome, the opportunity cost when making decisions, small or big, making sure whatever I did had a good balance of everything. Generally I didn’t have much problem with the issue of “balance” in my own life. However, as the various assignments, exams, university applications, SATs , family obligations and personal fun time started to get jumbled up in my last year of high school and the last and most difficult year of the IB Diploma, I lost sight of this balance. I started focusing only on my academics, neglected, and forgot about my own mental and physical wellbeing. This left me tired, unfocused and altogether grumpy and moody at times. It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that I was in such a snit because of my own skewed focus in life. Conversely and interestingly, enough, the IB despite unbalancing me, was also able to provide and instil some balance in my life and my habits. The IB has something called C.A.S, a program short for Creativity, Action and Service, where students have to complete a mandatory 150 hours of activities that are in short, any sports, cultural and volunteering work. The activity chosen must have elements of creativity and/or active movement and/or service to the community. You must complete your CAS hours in order to graduate and receive your Diploma, no matter how good your grades are. So there you have it, a simple hat trick that makes sure we sleep-deprived, study-driven IB kids don’t lose sight of ways to let off steam, maintain our fitness and ensure that we are rewarded spiritually through helping others by playing concertos for rest homes, running, planting trees, choreographing and organising dances and talent shows between our studying. I’ve recently come to realise that this habit still resides with me even post-IB. Unconsciously, I’ve been alternating my days with time spent “studying”-writing my blogs and fulfilling various familiar obligations, to my “creativity”-I’ve started sketching again and watching/reading my books and films, my “action” walks and runs with a friend’s dog, and lastly, my “service”-I spent this afternoon teaching 2 Chinese seniors English I ran into at the Library. A balance of every aspect in life means that we are in control of our lives, not vice versa, where the aspect-studying, family expectations control us instead. I don’t know if I can maintain this philosophy and balance in university and beyond, but I don’t expect always to. We will all experience upheaval of some sort that will tip the scales one way or the other but at least I am assured that I can rebalance the scales. As I read somewhere once, a life needs to be lived with everything in moderation, and isn’t that what balance is? Follow me on http://mywonderingsouls.blogspot.co.nz/ 