An Introduction.

Balance.

Not too much, not little. A state where things are of equal weight or force.

I named this blog balance, because that's what it amounts to. An effort to find it and an effort to live with it. If you’re reading this, I want to take a moment to say, ‘thank you.’  Thank you for visiting this tiny, humble corner of the internet. Here you will find an arrangement of words and spelling errors intended to form an opinion, that means something, to someone. My hope is that by finding my words, you might find yours. If you choose to read back further, you’ll see that at a younger age, I had written previously on matters related to physical/mental health and fitness, and perhaps at the time believed I had some knowledge or personal experiences worth sharing. I realize now how little I  ‘knew’ and how little I ‘know’ about health, and how little I know about humans.

    Though I had considered taking down previous posts, I have decided (in spite of my embarrassment), to keep them up. Not merely for amusement purposes, though what harm if a chuckle or two is had,  but as a testimony to the journey of growth and humility. A testimony to the experience of believing we knew more than we did, and the experience of realizing how little we know. At one time I would have even called this a ‘health blog’. I now know I cannot call it that. Writing a ‘health blog’ is a contentious endeavor, as it might give the impression that I am an ‘authority’ in the area of health. I am not. The internet has already reached capacity with those. And fortunately, there are people who are genuinely more knowledgeable than I, who can offer more valuable insights and experiences in areas related to health promotion. What I can offer, however, is a blog about being human, about being imperfect, and about having bad days and better days.     

    When I was younger, I used to think that health came down to the food you ate (or didn’t), your propensity to engage in copious amounts of exercise and the way you looked. These days, I realize I very little of that contributed to much in the way of ‘health’. Under the guise of ‘self-improvement’, I slept too little, worked out too much, and monitored my nutritional intake to excess. This did very little to make me feel ‘healthy’. I wasn’t able to sit still with my thoughts for five minutes, and oftentimes still struggle to. The response to this, was to drink too much coffee and workout despite my body's craving for rest, and unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel better. But I do know that long walks, honest conversations and good food with friends have always made me feel better. 

  Personally, I feel that our thoughts and the stories we tell ourselves have as much of an impact on our sense of well-being as the foods we do or do not consume. And in an era marked by over-consumption and under-consumption, it’s hard to tell what ‘health’ is and what it isn’t. Perhaps the answer is somewhere in that vast space we might call the ‘in between’. And perhaps part of the problem is that for so long, we have been led by marketing and social media to define health in antagonistic terms. We’re either on a diet or off one. We are either drinking or we’re not drinking. We are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The room for imperfection is marginal. The room for balance has been blurred.This blog’s ambition is to explore what that balance might look like. And it’s likely that your balance will look different from mine. It isn’t my intention to tell you what your world should look like. I can however, be open and honest, about what mine might appear to be. If this makes you feel a little less alone in your own journey, then that will have been worthwhile. 

In the past few years, I have worked as a personal trainer and in a healthcare setting, and more recently have been accepted into a Master’s programme to study Public Health. This is an extension of my desire to explore on a deeper level how social, economic, cultural and environmental issues influence health. I am interested in how we as individuals can interact with these factors to find a balance amidst them. As the days, weeks and months progress, I hope to write further about finding that balance. I hope you enjoy the words and join the journey.