Something I've been doing lately is trying to let go of my addiction to news radio during my commute. I mainly listen to public radio, but when the news gets overwhelmingly gruesome I switch to commercial nonsense talk radio. Occasionally, I listen to classic rock or just classical without the rock, but it's all external stimuli of some sort. So, the other morning I tried driving to work in silence. It was a bit uncomfortable at first and it felt more like I was punishing myself than giving myself a treat, but I also felt good about trying something different. I did this for a few days and quickly got used to it.
This morning I was craving public radio. First I thought... No, I can't cave in on this! And then... I can listen to the damn radio if I want to!! Well, of course I can; nobody ever said that I couldn't. Then I realized that it's just about balance.
It's not about being so rigid... don't listen to the radio.. only listen once a week or any kind of thing like that. It's just about finding a balance... having some quiet time to just relax as I commute and also enjoying some radio when I feel like it.
That seems simple enough, right? But I think the hard part is realizing when we are out of balance. It took me challenging my addiction to the radio to see that it was out of balance. Once I did it all seemed very simple, which it is.
So, this morning I listened for a bit, but found myself thinking of other things. My inner dialogue was competing with the radio so I just turned it off. I'm not sure that I would have even noticed that in the past. I would have just gone on thinking over the distraction of the radio; using extra energy and focus to compete for no reason.
My inner dialogue was about balance. We've heard that you have to take the good with the bad... that you need the bad in order to recognize or appreciate the good and all sorts of things like this. Even so, we still strive for good in our lives and do what ever we can to avoid the bad. If we got our wishes though and ended up with 100% good then it would cease to be good as we'd no longer have any way to measure "goodness" or happiness or whatever yow want to call it. What do we do? Strive for some bad stuff too? Haha. Of course not. I don't know for sure... I'm not a zen master... that's why this blog is called Becoming Zen. But... I think it's more about just accepting both the good and the bad... embracing them because they both exist and are interdependent on one another.
My next thought was about striving for good and how that relates to balance. I was thinking about how when I'm on vacation, which for me means that I have a weekend off, and I go someplace that is very relaxing. I think to myself.. If only life could be like this every day. If only I could wake up in the morning with nothing on my agenda, walk to the local bookstore and just read whatever I felt like at the time. And maybe I get a bit sad... Why can't I live here? And things like that.
Now, I look back at the times when my life WAS like that and I was saying... I'm so bored!! I want excitement! I want inspiration! Take me to the big city and set me free!! You first reaction might be... well, the grass is always greener. I agree with that to some extent, but I think the reason the grass is always green is because life is out of balance. I don't really need to move to the town that I vacation in. I don't really need life where I have nothing on my agenda each day. What I need is more balance. I need to find ways to have more days in my current situation where I can have nothing on my agenda or much less on my agenda. I need to make more time to relax. I need to go to my local bookstore once in awhile and read whatever I feel like reading with no judgments about it.
I wonder... I wonder if our lives were more in balance... if we found more time for play instead of work... if we ate more green, local foods instead of processed fast foods... if we read more and watched t.v less... if we walked more and drove less... slept more and stressed less.. and so on.. I wonder if we would still work so hard to manifest "good" in our lives or if we would just be more at peace and grateful of the good that is currently around us and also have more strength do accept the "bad?"
It's an interesting thought.
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