Balancing Our View

Art and life are a lot alike.  Each will take you wherever you would want to go, all you have to do is add some imagination. I work in watercolors and in aqua oils. Although I’ve done 2 years at the local community college studying watercolor, much of my work in oils stems from Bob Ross and other PBS art shows.

In part, you need to balance your darks in your lights. If you have the painting with all light colors, it doesn’t mean anything because there’s nothing to contrast them against. And if you make everything dark, it means very little for the exact same reasons. And so, you need the dark hues, and the light ones so that each can accentuate the other.

Life is much the same. If you are winning the lottery every week, and always flying from one vacation to another, and everything is permanently just perfect, how do you know how you are doing? If your life is forever dark, with no saving grace, no belief in a future, and no dreams and everything is continually just sad, the same question applies. How do you know how you’re doing?

We have to live life knowing it is not always going to be super bright and smooth all of the time, and it should not be dark and discouraging all of the time. We have to find our balance. In the kaleidoscope of our life, things will drift in and out of focus and in and out of frame. In the revolutions of our hues, there will always be good moments filled with brightness and happiness. And there will be the dark times of sorrow and loss.

We do not wish to dwell on only one or the other, for both are important, and both have meaning. Each accentuates the other. And each, in its own way, makes the other an enhanced experience. It allows us to stay grounded and understand everything in life is there to be lived and respected for what it is.

There is brightness, and darkness in everything. It is up to each person to determine how it is to be viewed. I say that because in truth, just like everything else in this world, what is often seen is up to our own interpretation. That’s true.

Thank you for being with me today, I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Author: Mike Balof

A retired Air Force Master Sergeant, Mike used to lay in bed at night and worry about what would happen if his plant closed or found himself without a job. One day his plant closed. Rather than panic and hysteria (OK, maybe a little) Mike found himself carried away on the adventure of his life. Mike started with the best job he ever had working at Home Depot. He spent 8 years working with job seekers at a local workforce center, helping them to find employment. He then started his own company developing courses, writing books and urging others to follow their own paths into the future. Mike holds a Master of Arts in Adult Education and Training and a Bachelor of Business Management, earned through the University of Phoenix and an AAS degree in Electronics Systems Technology from the Community College of the Air Force. Mike is a member of the Delta Mu Delta Business Honor Society. View all posts by Mike Balof