LIFE IS A TIGHTROPE WALK — Art of Balancing

LIFE IS A TIGHTROPE WALK Art of Balancing LIVING life is like tightrope walking. ‘Tightrope walking’ means maintaining your balance between two opposite positions; proceeding very cautiously, so that you avoid either of two equally bad situations. The word ‘tightrope walk’ was initially coined for a form of entertainment. A tightrope is a tightly stretched wire or rope fixed high above the ground on which someone walks across, in order to entertain people. But the spirit of the tightrope walk, that is, maintaining a balance between two opposites, is a great principle in real life. Maintaining a balance between two opposites, is a great principle in real life. You like sweet food items, but your doctor says that you are diabetic, so you have to avoid sweets. In this case, you will try to find a balance between your desire and the doctor’s advice. At home, you experience a disturbing situation, but when you are in your office, you feel that you have to deal with office affairs with a cool mind, so you try to find a balance between two contrary mental states. You are walking on the road, and a scooter-rider hits you. Naturally, you become angry and you want to beat him up, but you think that if you turn violent, the police will arrest you and take you to jail, so you try to control your emotions. In your business, you have suffered loss and fallen into despair, but you think: ‘I have lost the present, and if I give in to despair, I will lose the future also.’ So, you seek to balance the way you feel. There are hundreds of such situations that we face in our daily lives. Life is indeed like a tightrope walk. If you lean to one side, you are bound to fall. So, save yourself from leaning to one side, and maintain a balance between the two sides. This is the only formula for a safe journey through life. For example, a student who fails in an examination thinks of committing suicide due to deep frustration. Then, he remembers the well-known saying: ‘Try, try, try again!’ He starts rethinking his future plans, and says, ‘If I have lost the first chance, there is every possibility that I will be able to avail of the second chance.’ He then starts studying with