These days I am literally “on the ball”. My chiropractor has deemed my core muscles weak and needing strengthening so as to hold up my spine better. And so she prescribed a Swiss ball – a large ball made from some strong but slightly elastic material – for me to sit. Naturally I googled to find out what the ball is all about. The idea is to introduce instability to my sitting posture. The body naturally adapts to the constantly changing centre of gravity so as to maintain balance, using those weak core muscles of mine. Since I am still able to work at my desk while on the ball, I have since swapped my nice swivel chair for the ball. Thus all at once, I am able to restore some balance between the long hours I spend in front of the computer screen, and my body’s need for activity.

However I was on a chair when my eye was caught by the headline of an article in my Newsweek (June 7, 2010) “Controlling the Balance”. A fascinating piece by Monica Seles, once an all conquering champion in women’s tennis. I can’t find the article on the internet, so I have to type out some excerpts for you:

Professional tennis is all about control. Control the ball, the power, the placement, the point, the set, the match. Control yourself. … There’s often an entourage with you to maintain that control; coaches for your game, agents and managers to handle the business, nutritionists and trainers for your body, family and psychologists for mental support. All there to keep you focused, to keep you winning, and to keep you in control.

She then went on to describe how her world spun out of control when she was stabbed in the back at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany, and then when her father, who taught her how to play tennis, got stomach cancer. With the loss of control, she began to put on weight, despite the efforts of the trainers and nutritionists. The additional weight finally ended her career with a foot injury. Listen to her account again:

Then the speculation really got ugly. If I had put on that much weight as a player, they said, just imagine what would happen to me when I stopped the hours of practice and was left alone without nutritionists and trainers.

But I found something just as important as control: balance. I didn’t have to spend hours in the gym. I liked walking, so I’d take a walk every day and maybe hit the gym once or twice a week. I didn’t have to live off protein shakes and deprive myself of the pasta and cookies I love. If I wanted a cookie, I allowed myself to have one, because food is there to be enjoyed. But it was all about finding the balance in my life so I could take control again.

I was fascinated by the idea of science and technology (the entourage) being used to maintain control so the person can constantly perform at her peak, by her experience of the limits of what science and technology can achieve, and by her testament to the importance of balance, that led her to advise, “as you try to find the level of control that will make you a winner, also try to find the balance in your life that will make you happy”.

Another article that caught my eye was in the Letters to the Editor section of Friday’s The Sun. Entitled “To children on World Environment Day”, it was written by the Unicef representative to Malaysia. Let me quote what he wrote:

Years of industrial and human pollution, particularly in industrialised countries, has brought about enough damage to the environment to cause climate change and many of the natural disasters we have seen in recent times like droughts and floods.

The delicate balance between different forms of life on our planet is also being disturbed. The biodiversity, which simply put is the variety of plants and animals that live together in perfect balance, is at risk after many years of unchecked “development”.

http://sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=47534

Once again, there is that tussle between control and balance. We need to control the world, in order to produce the things we need and want, to do the things we want to do, to go where we want to go, and live as we want to wherever we may be. There is nothing wrong with this. After all, God commanded “fill the earth and subdue it”. The problem is when we then believe ourselves to be at the centre of the universe and we make the earth subservient to our desires. Then come unrestrained consumption, convenience with no thought to consequence, the relentless pursuit of lower costs (that usually end up in someone else paying the cost), entitlement without corresponding productivity.

While the issues of the environmental impact of our present lifestyle are important – global warming, deforestation, pollution, waste and wastefulness – the long term answer cannot be more science and technology. It is that we must all live balanced lives: balance between what we take out and what we put in, balance between what we want and what we are willing to pay, balance between profit and responsibility, balance between indulgence and having enough, balance between ambition and contentment. This, “finding the balance in your life that will make you happy”, we all can do today.

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