This is not what I had planned on writing at this particular moment. But looking at what is happening around the world: the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the assault of government forces on the opposition in Libya, the role of Saudi troops in crushing protests in Bahrain, it does not seem appropriate to produce a flippant post on how it feels like to be back in my London home after two months gallivanting in Brazil.
To be changing countries and straddling continents in the midst of so many newsworthy events provides me, nevertheless, with an interesting perspective on the biases of national reporting and analysis. I am old enough to remember seeing the televised footage of the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981; they were the first, unexpected, images of carnage and confusion to register in my then adolescent and therefore impressionable mind; the one, especially, which most vividly stuck with me, that of a man with his arm blown off, pitifully, uncomprehendingly, staring out of the wreck of the parade stand in a Cairo square. At the time, Brazil itself was under a military dictatorship, and the prospect of a violent upheaval, anywhere, to the ruling order was very much relevant to us. To make sense of the unfolding news, we young ones turned, naturally, to the adults we considered the most politically savvy: our History and Social Studies teachers. What would happen now, we asked; what would this unknown man, Hosni Mubarak, do? He would not last, we were told; there would be a proper revolution, the Egyptian military would take over, there would be civil war.
Thirty years on I can say, boy, were they wrong about that. And ever since, I have looked back on this episode as my first enlightening experience on how people who may seem at first glance well-informed can, in actual fact, have absolutely no blooming idea what they are talking about. It taught me, too, to always try to build a more nuanced view of things, by looking at them from different angles. It is a lesson I keep having to learn, and was again reminded of, by being exposed for the whole of two months to the Brazilian news media, from which I had grown estranged after more than twenty years abroad.
Because living under an authoritarian regime, you see, polarises positions very neatly; you are either for or against, either a collaborator or a rebel; nuances disappear. But blow off the heavy lid of authoritarianism and the cracks of dissension quickly multiply. Examples abound, and Brazil after the return to democracy was no exception, indeed the first thing that happened when the military were thrown out was that the single government and opposition parties that had been allowed until then by the regime’s crooked electoral laws promptly splintered into a multitude of political groupings, whose squabbling, petty vote-trading, and pork-barrelling nowadays provides no end of fodder for the national news media. And yet, I lost sight that the news media themselves might be subject to the same phenomenon, and was correspondingly and disappointingly surprised to find a Brazilian publication on which I had relied, in the tumultuous 1980s, for critical attacks on an oppressive government, and which had, in the years of Ken Livingstone’s mayoralty of London, a refreshingly contrarian view on the merits of Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Socialism, displaying in their coverage of the turmoil in the Arab world a wholly inexplicable faith in the political competence of the military in the region when rating it as a factor for stability, and indulging in the most blatant scaremongering on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as the only possible outcome of the toppling of the admittedly unsavoury characters currently or until recently in charge.
For it fills me with great hope that people in North Africa and elsewhere are taking their affairs in their own hands, and standing up and being counted. And although it is inevitable that the so far relatively peaceful transition in Tunisia and Egypt should cede news space to the alarming developments in Libya and Bahrain, and to the threat of nuclear meltdown in Japan, it is a boon of the Internet age that anybody, like me, still interested in knowing what is going on can find enough information to note, for instance, the already diverging camps on the forthcoming Egyptian referendum, and to believe that that Brazilian publication will be proven as wrong in its predictions now as my History and Social Studies teachers were thirty years ago.
But, in all this, I know that I have to go back to that pitiful man on the Cairo parade stand, and keep in mind that the events that I write on so glibly, and rant about so forcefully, are being lived through as a time of great pain, and misery, and loss, by those caught up in them. This is true whether these events be entirely the product of misguided human decisions, or whether the human folly of building nuclear reactors on a seismically active island be merely compounding the cataclysms that planet Earth is able to hurl about. But also at whatever scale: just as the destruction of an anthill may be unremarkable to a gardener, but is of great import to the ants who fight desperately to save their home, so in the vastness of this Universe, what matter the troubles of this crusty bit of molten rock, orbiting around a nondescript star amongst a couple of hundred billion others in its galaxy? Were it to blow up altogether, its passing away would not even be measurable, from the nearest neighbouring galaxy, for over two million years; and beyond that neighbour, a hundred billion other galaxies swirl, even more oblivious to our fate. That, dear reader, is a meditation on insignificance.
When I imagine what it looks like to live a balanced life, two thoughts come to mind. The first is the "Jack theory": All work and no play makes for a cranky Jack. All this and no that -- too much of this and too little of that -- just doesn't work. The challenge here is to balance what we must do with what we enjoy and want to do. We need to carve out time for the serious stuff, as well as play.
The other way to live a balanced life has more to do with going with the flow -- not letting the inevitable glitch in our day throw us off-balance, sending us careening off course. It's about staying balanced. In other words, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still "go wrong" with it. When lucky, we experience a minor glitch -- a glitch so small and short-lived that you hardly notice it, a transient fault that corrects itself. However, there are the times when a hornet's nest of difficulties presents itself, and you need to change course immediately, lest you get knocked on your tush!
Here are eight guidelines on how you can "root" yourself in balance, enabling you to smile and stay the course, even in the face of the inevitable hiccup, glitch or major league malfunction.
8 Tips For Living A Well-Balanced Life
Take care of you. I promise you that your health is the key ingredient to all! They don't say "If you've got your health, you've got everything" for nothing! It's the truth. You simply cannot function in high gear if you don't get the right amount of rest, exercise or good, healthy eats (e.g. real food, not processed stuff). At some point, "it" will catch up with you.
Set priorities. Leading your "best life" does not mean that you need to be, or should try to be, perfect and do it all. It means that you self-reflect, know yourself and determine your true values. Not knowing who you are and what you want and trying to do everything is a recipe for burnout and disaster. Do not bite off more than you can chew!
Plan pretty. No, planning is not a dirty word, although you might think it is, based on the response I sometimes get when I stress the importance of planning. Do not stamp your feet like a three-year-old and say, "I don't like to plan." Keeping an organized calendar and planner tracking your appointments, your food and your workouts (i.e. movement, for the exercise phobic) leads to freedom. When you plan, you essentially dump your thoughts onto the page and organize them so they do not overwhelm you, which leads to a productive, relaxed kind of day. Instead of cringing at the thought of "planning," embrace it. Once again, planning presents a clear path out of an overwhelming situation and leads you toward the happy state of freedom.
Stuff happens; expect the unexpected. Have you ever had a day when something unexpected didn't happen? An unexpected phone call, unexpected traffic jam, a platter of pretty cupcakes being paraded in front of you or, maybe worse yet, a computer crash? Stuff happens, my friends. Stuff happens big time. So expect the unexpected and just roll with it.
Wake up happy. Your first thoughts are the most powerful and the strongest. They can set a tone for the day. You can easily train yourself to begin each and every day with a positive thought. Begin to pay attention to your waking thoughts. If they are not "happy" or useful thoughts, change them. In the place between being asleep and fully awake, note your thoughts and change them if you have to. If your thoughts are positive and useful, embrace them: "Today, I am going to get organized and 'motor' through the day with great, happy energy" versus, "Crapola, it's Monday. Another day, another dollar." Get my drift?
Stay connected with family and friends. Another key ingredient to living a balanced life and staying "in balance" is your connection to your friends and family. However busy you may be, be sure to reach out to at least one friend or family member daily. Preferably, you would do this in real time, either in person or via telephone -- not electronically! There's nothing like the real thing.
Be spontaneous. On the one hand, I do believe that planning equals freedom, as mentioned above. On the other hand, let's not get so rigid that we lose the ability to be spontaneous. If you suddenly have the urge to go for a long walk, go to a movie, hook up with a friend at lunchtime or feed the hummingbirds, then do so!
Breathe deep and unwind. At the end of your glorious day, take a minute, or two, or 30 to unwind. Curl up with a good book, take a hot bath and listen to music that soothes or stirs your soul. Do nothing. Take in a few deep, cleansing breaths, congratulate yourself on a day well-lived and just plain relax.
What is the most important thing that you do to help you stay balanced, enabling you to go with the flow? Weigh in below!
Spread the word, not the icing,
Janice Taylor Wise, Fun, Utterly Useful 
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