9 minute read
THE INFINITY OF IMBALANCE
THE INFINITY
OF IMBALANCE
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STORY BY IBTISSAM EL AZAMI
Balance is one tragic little word and one tragic little world. Some concepts are so fragile, yet rule our entire lives. If you don’t pay attention, if you just so much as shift your focus from your own vibe, there it is: already gone. If we are all somewhat seeking balance in life, the reason is very simple. It is a natural thing to seek happiness, and true happiness cannot happen without peace. And what could feel more peaceful than that exquisite state of nothingness, in which you expect neither past nor future?
JEWELRY IDALIA BAUDO
MODEL ALYSSA BARTASHY
HAIR & MAKE-UP ARTIST ARACELI BRAVO
PHOTOGRAPHER FLÁVIO IRYODA
BALANCE IS TODAY THE GREATEST jeopardy to our society. A die-hard feel-good attitude in life does not sell. Modern magazines and TV shows might incorporate plus-size models more frequently, but thin-ass social media is still our true ruler. And it is still throwing shade in propagandas of weight loss and unreal saturated happiness. When you open Instagram, the posts that you see feature sunsets, travelers, and extravagance of all horizons. We’re feeding ourselves with rows upon rows of Insta-saturated irrealities, or as we might actually call them - surrealities. The sooner you understand that you are very much capable of making it in a world that is indeed nothing but a virtual ball on its way to extinction, the sooner you can get rid of that imbalance that has been writing your life to the core.
After 2020 and the tragic pandemic that literally sliced the world to pieces of sickness and fear, we’ve noticed a great chunk of the population all over the world deciding to make stuff happen for themselves. Every bud has tried to survive and push through an economical situation where everyone but our parents and grandparents is a selfmade person. When you are trying to become a self-made person, that is also where you might risk losing your sense of balance. When we start comparing ourselves to other people’s success, it is not only moneywise that we should compare ourselves. Not one person has the same history, background, and future. Breaking news, bling bling riches are not the balance you’re looking for. Balance doesn’t lie in bills and it doesn’t lie in high-end couture. It does, however, lie in self-achievement.
In everyday life, it is very easy to spot when someone is going through a period of imbalance - for instance with work. How many times do you wake up in the morning, especially when you’re a freelancer, and you want to do the work and hit it out of the park? Yet somehow, in less than 30 seconds, you lead yourself to believe that you are not worthy of the projects that your clients have trusted you with. Imbalance in life, aside from helping sell countless pills and softwares and eyeshadow palettes, causes the biggest wounds. The feelings induced are the way for our body and our conscience to ring the alarm, and let us know that something is not functioning in our day-to-day pattern of living.
Whether it is compulsive eating or toxic relationships, none of these would ever happen, should we put ourselves first in all of our relationships to the world. How can you possibly reach balance, happiness, and most importantly peace if you don’t know where your soul is anchored at any given moment? A state of life awareness - becoming the spectator and the actor of your life - is not a state reachable at every hour of every day. However, it is a state that you can work on over and over again. Just to feel better. Taking the time to peace out and
IT IS NOT ONLY THE MINDSETS OF PEOPLE ALL AROUND US, IT IS ALL OF THE SUBLIMINAL LITTLE ACTIONS AND COMMERCIALS AND ADVERTISEMENTS THAT JUST LEAD US TO BELIEVE THAT WE ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO REACH THE PEAK OF OUR LOVE LIFE AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE. IT IS ABOUT US SELECTING WHAT TO BELIEVE.
disappear for a while to find your true meaning. Have you ever observed how animals feed themselves? We might be giving them a little bit of help with pre-packaged food and plastic bowls. Otherwise, they eat until they are full enough, and then go to play. Do animals overeat as much as we do?
Have you noticed it is almost only when humans interfere with nature that we witness animal obesity and various health conditions? Should we let nature run its soothing, calming, long and lengthy course, an imbalance would be a thing of the past, or solely a thing of cultures so advanced that they have forgotten their primitive roots.
I am of the opinion that each and every negative feeling that you might be feeling is linked to imbalance. Introspection appears to be the only legitimate solution to healing yourself. Not many of us are actually able to work on our own ancient unhealed wounds, even when those may appear healed to the world. Our mind and the world are not such a different interface, and everything is connected. Healing requires accepting the fact of letting go. We are always trying to take everything under control and fix everything to heal longdamaged parts of ourselves.
How about we all started minding our own business, tending to our own zones of improvement? Loneliness is one incredible gift that not many know how to savor. If you know how to play the loneliness card to your advantage, you are the king of this world. When you learn to let go of the clinginess and learn true independence - from a partner or family, your small protective sense of control no longer has a reason to be.
How to cure this lack of balance is not an easy question, and yet it is most certainly the secret peace and much better world to live in. Spend the day focusing on your goals, not focusing on if’s, whether’s, what’s or maybe’s. The morning is not a time to be doubting yourself. Doubt can come after you’ve actually provided the work, in the afternoon, at a moment where you can afford a productive minute of doubt. Don’t start the day breaking yourself down from the moment you open your eyes. It can’t work. If you feed your car with water instead of fuel, you are not going anywhere. The same thing goes with the mindset. We’ve never known of a world where negative + negative + negative all adding up equals positive.
That is exactly the reason why we should be worried about the lack of imbalance that is ruling our entire lives. It is not only the mindsets of people all around us, it is all of the subliminal little actions and commercials and advertisements that just lead us to believe that we are not good enough to reach the peak of our love life and profes-
IN THE END, WE ALL HAVE QUITE THE SAME. NOT ONLY SURVIVING BUT EXISTING IN A PLEASANT WAY. IT HAS TO DO WITH YOUR OWN INTEGRITY, AND WITH THE LENGTHS YOU WOULD GO TO PLEASE YOUR EGO - RELYING ONLY ON YOURSELF.
sional life. It is about us selecting what to believe. See, it does not really matter what lengths you will go to in order to be accepted professionally if your work shows imbalance. If you are more focused on the opinions of the people surrounding you than you are doing what you need to do with your life and your art right now, maybe you should reconsider your situation in life, your placement, and where you are anchored in the world at this moment. Why again are the opinions of people more important than yours?
Waiting around, or worse, chasing around for opinions and validation is one of the most downgrading actions you can ever undertake towards yourself. A mix of unsolicited opinions or solicited criticism will make you lose track, and often, you will not know where to go from there. Overestimating yourself is also a real imbalance that will hinder you from carrying on out with projects that may be dear to you. Neither arrogance nor insecurity will get you anywhere. A healthy balance will.
Take the time to know where you’re at during the day and most generally in life, and listen to yourself. Listen to your body, and to that little voice that we try to shut up. It is actually there to save us from our darkest moments. Ask yourself regularly if your goal is still the same when you undertake big projects that might make you lose focus from your true goals. If your goals and your actions are not aligned, this imbalance will cause unhappiness, and eat at you crumb by crumb. Honesty towards yourself will also be the best policy, and you can most certainly change your goals, but you cannot lose yourself. Unless you go through a very major shift in your life, it is widely accepted to go through several roads and means to ensure your success. The goal should remain the same at all costs, which means that for your success and ultimate happiness, you have carefully crafted a life pattern that drags you upward and helps you expand into the lovely creature you are. That’s the key, keep the goal, and find different ways to score. When I am writing about this “ultimate goal”, in the end, we all have quite the same. Not only surviving but existing in a pleasant way. It has nothing to do with money or relationships. It has to do with your own integrity, and with the lengths you would go to please your ego - relying only on yourself.
The reality of the action in life is that needs to be done. Yet when we stand in front of the canvas that is life, so many people stop and stare at the blank of their creativity, and at the space that they cannot feel anymore, since they are paralyzed by anxiety. They keep forgetting one very important question, if not the most important: what am I here to create today?
The lack of balance is very much an illness of our era. I dare you to go in nature and find one animal or plant or stone or fish that does not know how to properly care for their own needs without any risk of excess as humans do. When life happens and starts shooting its shots - or rather, throwing pretty acid lemons in our face, if you don’t have your sense of balance figured out, the rough patch becomes rougher. Start by taking control of every small thing that you can possibly control. That starts with the amount of sleep you allow yourself every night, the quantity of pure water that slips through your veins, and the wholesomeness of the nutrients that you pile up inside your body. The little details are what make it all up, and an entire human being’s life will showcase at the end if the path taken was successful or not.
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