Balance: overrated and underrated (see... balance)

There are a couple of ideas/thoughts/words that calm me down or prevent me from losing my ish. Balance is one of these words. Sadly, just thinking b-a-l-a-n-c-e doesn't right the ship immediately, but if I think about the concepts that are associated with the word, it's rather therapeutic.

So my nieces are the best kids in the world. They are both immensely sweet and beautiful and I'm completely powerless over them, but I like to pretend I can instill some discipline in them. Anyhow, one of my nieces lives here in Chandler and she's a huge iCarly fan so my bro gave her an iCarly game for her DS over Xmas. One of the games required the player to take care of multiple animals at the same time. You had to feed, clean, and support these animals or they'd die of syphilis. No, not really.

A great way to teach balance, right? If my niece cared for the chicken too long the dog would get sad and walk away. She eventually learned a system of how much time each animal needed and determined which animals were very needy and which ones were more self-sufficient. I run my life in a similar fashion. If one of my friends or a family member needs something I'll try to support them while letting other things fall to the side a bit. Just before the dog bails I circle the wagon and try to catch the relationships/obligations that have slipped.

So, I'm getting older... (29... WTF?) and I'm starting to question how I've been running things. I saw Shutter Island this past weekend. The island is a mental institution so one of the core concepts dealt with mental illness. Genius and insanity live as neighbors in the same small town. To be remembered as an innovator you have to be crazy enough to break the rules, yet sane enough to wear something over your junk. Start breaking the moors of society, even with undeniable brilliance; and get treated like the other guy from WHAM!

To achieve great things some people will have to let things actually drop and hope to salvage things later. Maybe some opportunities or relationships will truly be lost, but getting older requires hard choices that won't please everyone around you. Sometimes refusing to be selfish prevents people from reaching the heights that they should. Which sucks for the people around that person. Which makes the act of not being selfish rather... selfish.

Before you go any further...

I should clarify that I aim to provide little to no entertainment and offer positively no public service through this blog. This will entirely be about my uncanny ability to be entirely self-absorbed.

If such things somehow entertain you, stick around. You're sick in the way I am. And we'll get along famously.