Keeping a Running Balance

balance (def.)
•a state of equilibrium
•equality between the totals of the credit and debit sides of an account
•harmonious arrangement or relation of parts or elements within a whole
•something left after other parts have been taken away
•symmetry, exact reflection of form on opposite sides of a dividing line

Many years ago I realized the need to keep a running balance in our checking account. The right hand (me) didn't always know what the left hand (Scott) was spending, and back then I couldn't pull up a bank statement online at a moment's notice to see what had and had not cleared the bank, even if I knew what to be watching for. I discovered that when I kept an accurate running balance of our checking account I felt on top of things, no matter how little money was in the account. If I had $38.22, for example, I could breathe easily because I knew where I stood and could make decisions accordingly. I still get a thrill from knowing down to the penny exactly where we're "at," even when (especially when) the funds are drawing low.

Keeping a running balance -- we do it not just in our checking accounts but in our laundry bins and in our kitchen cupboards and sinks and garbage cans and gas tanks; in our sleep-to-waking, work-to-play, and indoor-outdoor ratios.

The point is we are running, and how do you keep anything in balance when you're running?

When I get really excited about something (which can happen every few days, it seems), I tend to go overboard on that one thing while neglecting almost everything else -- certainly everything else that is non-essential. I tend to get out of balance.

The pendulum swings recklessly for a few days -- up until 3am, sleeping mid-afternoon to compensate, barely meeting deadlines...And then I think of the Foucault Pendulum swinging in perfect rhythm in the Eyring Science Center at BYU, demonstrating the steady rotation of the earth.

William Shakespeare said it best: "Were man but constant, he were perfect." But we can't be constant. We can't live in a constant state of equilibrium. If things are momentarily in balance, they will soon be out of balance again, and we will be scrambling to put everything back in order.

I often feel like one of the Chinese plate spinners I saw in the Mulan parade at Disneyland about 12 years ago. Somehow they managed to walk the parade route with multiple plates at the ends of long poles, all spinning and tilting at once, each needing attention.

That's a metaphor for life. Just trying to keep in balance keeps us running.