Just a few weeks ago, I was in my Theory Of Knowledge class at school. For those of you who don’t know, this is a class where we reflect on how we know what we know. To start the lesson, my teacher showed us the following list of values and asked us to choose which five are most important to us.
Initially, I was overwhelmed. Nearly all of these values are of some importance to me, so how was I supposed to choose just five? After much internal debate, the first one I wrote down was balance. Balance wasn’t something I had previously considered as a ‘personal value’, but after this task I realized that to me, it was one of the most important ones.
Balance is what I call an umbrella term: it incorporates every value and without it no other value matters. It is about reaching a sense of equilibrium where everything is in moderation, and no one aspect of life is too overbearing. However, balance is subjective - the amount of work I can endure while still maintaining balance may be different to you, and my own version of balance can change overtime (for example, the workload I found ‘manageable’ a year ago is significantly less to what I consider ‘manageable’ today)
Even though balance is my priority, there are very few times where I reach equilibrium, and that's ok. I am always working towards that goal and asking myself what I can do to get there, but life is exhausting. There’s no other way to say it. I go through high points and low points, high work periods and low work periods, high motivation and low motivation, but this is what keeps me balanced.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 has added weight to the scale and made it increasingly difficult to be balanced. The tools and coping mechanisms I once used for my mental health are no longer options, and the undertone of uncertainty in just about everything terrifies me. I’ve had to adjust my ways of thinking, my priorities and my outlook on life. More than anything, 2020 has taught me the importance of adaptability and adjustment to change.
‘It is not necessarily the strongest or most intelligent that survives, but the ones most responsive to change’ - Charles Darwin
If you only remember one thing after reading this article, I hope it is this: you don’t have to be perfect all of the time. It's ok if your scale gets unbalanced or if life takes unprecedented turns, what matters is how you react to the unbalance. For me personally, finding my way back to balance often consists of dance parties in my room, talking to close friends and organizing. If you don’t know what will help you reach equilibrium, then step one is finding those things. It can be as simple as taking a shower or as large as seeking mental health counselling; the point is that it works for you.
Written by Chloe Young
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