Breathing.
It’s not something we ponder about it too much since it’s the very first thing we do when we arrive in this world. We do it instinctively. We don’t put any effort into learning it. It just happens.
Our life does not only hinge on breathing literally and in that moment. Our life hinges on it figuratively too. Because the seemingly unsophisticated act of breathing reveals something about the nature of life itself. It’s about taking in and releasing into the world. It’s a two-way process. And so is life.
You can try only breathing in, it’s unsustainable. The same is true for only breathing out. Soon enough, you find out, it does not only hurt, it will kill you too.
But I don’t need to tell you this. You somehow already knew it when you were born. What you may not have realised is that the same balancing act is necessary for the health of every aspect of your life.
You take, and you give. The law of balance.
Yet somehow, on our journey here, some mechanism gets activated in our psyche, and we gradually start getting obsessed with the taking, ignoring the giving one. And if there is not enough to be taken, our obsession moves to what is lacking and what is not enough.
Money, love, attention, care, help, sense of connection, happiness, you name it. If you feel there is not enough to take, your attention moves to the pain caused by the lack of it, and you get preoccupied with getting it.
Unfortunately, this only activates another law – what you chase too aggressively moves away from you aggressively too. You cannot catch happiness while chasing it with a sense of lack of happiness, the same way that you cannot chase away the darkness with darkness.
You find in the outer world more of what you carry in your inner world. You generate more of what you already have. Another law.
So how can you get what you want if you cannot chase it?
Go back to the law of balance and everything will fall into balance. In other words, if you feel there is not enough of something in the external world, find some of it within you and offer it instead – you and the external are not truly separate, this is an illusion. To restore the balance, someone needs to tip the scales – literally. Do not outsource that power to someone and wait around in desperation, take it into your hands, you have the power.
Give, and it will come back to you, that I can promise. I have seen the law at work so many times…
You lack a sense of connection?
Who can you offer that to? Who, in your surroundings desperately needs it? How can you offer that to others?
You lack help?
Who lacks help too, most likely more than you do? Who can you offer help to?
You lack love?
Who else does? Who can you offer love to? It could be a family member, a friend, or even a pet.
Sometimes those closest to us suffer from the exact same pain we suffer from but stay quiet. Sometimes, we need to look a bit further at acquaintances or even strangers through say, volunteering. And sometimes life sends people (or creatures generally) our way in its attempt to teach us a lesson, and we do not need to search.
There’s plenty of lack out there. Lack that we can fill if only we look beyond our own sense of lack for 2 minutes. And in filling it, we do not only do something good for another, but we also do ourselves the greatest of favours. Because by giving, we generate for ourselves, and we heal too. It’s a life law we, collectively, keep failing to understand.
But as the saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson goes,
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
The exact same thing is true for everything else in life:
Be who you need, and you will get that person. Give what you lack, and you will receive that thing.
It’s that simple.
