Knackered Seeks Balance with Benzos

   Hey there, Knackered here.  Probably the greatest balancing act of all time was done by a Norwegian named Tell Teigen atop a one hundred foot pole and four kitchen chairs on the Santa Monica Beach in the early 1950’s. While he successfully accomplished that feat and more, he fell to his death during a performance in 1958.  While he focussed on just one thing in life you could say that he still lived a very balanced life.

   It’s safe to say that life in itself is a balancing act. Things are always in motion.  Most stuff rarely goes the way you want it to.  Scheduled activities go awry when someone calls and says that they “can’t make it”.

   Have you stuck to your tapering schedule?  How’s that working out for you?  If you’re anything like me, you may have wondered if you fell off the pole at some point.  You’re probably still trying to get out of the safety net and climb back up the pole to where you left off.

   You may have been told somewhere through the years that your life lacks balance; I know I have.  With OCD and little impulse control, I operate like a dragster much of the time; point it in one direction, wait for the green light and floor it.  If I can stay on the straight and narrow, I know that my parachute has a pretty good chance of slowing me down before I run off the track.

   In the end, “I’ve decided that I have to focus on being great at the only things I’m actually good at, rather than good at what I was bad at.” (Jess Lambert-The Stranger at Black Lake).  Needless to say, it’s pretty hard to keep all the balls in the air at the same time;  a few might stay up there, but there’s little chance that you’ll be able to pull off the trick with all of them.

   I’ve kind of made a thing of it.  I fall down, get up, step in something nasty, and keep on going.  It makes for a rough journey, but usually leads me to the goal I’m after.  I’ve stumbled along the Benzo path, landed flat on my face, gotten up, wiped things off and tried it all over again.  Pretty much like everything else in my life. It’s humbling indeed.

     Still I’ve clung to the notion of trying to be great at just a couple of things.  It’s best to focus on that rather than strive to master the kaleidoscope of stuff that keeps calling my name.  I read the posts on site, do what works for me, read and study books, magazines, and journal articles constantly.  I own a copy of the Ashton Manual and read it again last week.  Surely that all must count as some sort of balance, while serving to make me wise enough to pull this whole thing off.

  Think balance is something you’ll find and will eventually come to you?  That may not be true.  Turns out that balance is something we create and build for ourselves.