August 20th, 2019
I am a person born of extremes.
For most of my life, I was always the best, or I was the worst. The smartest person in the room, or so dumb I could feel everybody staring. The top of the heap, or the bottom of a garbage fire. I was perpetually hotter and colder than Katy Perry could possibly imagine.
Most of my soul-searching over the past few years has been about finding balance. About giving myself some kind of peace without losing my edge. And sometimes, I find it. Sometimes, I find “sometimes,” instead of “always” or “never.”
And I find much of the world missing that common ground when it comes to rational and emotional decision-making.
See, there is a school of thinking and people who believe that rational thought without the use of any compassion is the way to make every decision.
Those people are wrong.
On the flip side, there are people whose empathy is so loud it drowns out reason and blows away all red flags.
See, those people don’t really get it, either.
We were given a head and a heart on purpose. It’s a check and a balance and when one feels heavier, it doesn’t feel right, and it weighs down your world. And you’ll find yourself at odds with people who are unbalanced on the other side of the universal teeter-totter. It’s why so many people are divided and can’t figure out why you can’t see what they see. It’s because we keep shutting one of our eyes in a misguided attempt to balance the view.
So I try to keep them both open. It feels like I fail as much as I succeed but I never stop trying to see it all. My natural extreme behavior will never go away. I will forever have days when I know I am the worst.
But by keeping myself aware that when I feel like that, I’m holding one eye closed, it allows the possibility of light to sneak through.
It reminds me to keep looking.
We find ourselves on sides internally, externally, naturally and carefully taught. And it’s exhausting.
But I hope the next time you feel tired, you can keep looking. Because it is all we can do to see.
The Den 