Balance

"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony."
- Author Unknown




In my previous entry, I spoke of exhaustion. In exhaustion we find tiredness and in tiredness we find misery. In misery, we find ourselves at the bottom of a hill looking up at the top of happiness. Realizing where we could be, we only find ourselves worse off because we have a comparison to the misery we are in.


This, at times, is the way that I feel. I have engulfed my life with so many activities that I have clouded the original intent of those activities. I have volunteered almost all of my time to reaching out to others. Key phrase in that last sentence is "all of my time". If I have put all my time into service for others, where has the time for myself gone? Where is the time to care for and nurture my soul?

Someone once told me that I need to learn how to juggle my activities and time. But that would mean that I would have one thing in my hand at a time and everything else would be thrown in the air until I tire of the thing in my hand and decide to discard it for later. I'd rather keep everything on one plane and balance it.

Here's the trick, let us not look at happiness as if it were on the top of a hill, but rather it is the fulcrum of our lives. If we were to put everything onto a circular plane, we could say that the happiness could be the center of our lives, but as my friend Nate pointed out, that would mean that we would be giving equal amounts of time and happiness to everything. Although that may seem appealing, it also means that we would be devoting the same amount of time to work as we would to family. Now, to me, that is not something that I would want to do. So rather, we can make happiness the fulcrum which gives us the ability to shift our happiness so that we can balance it out. Let us use the example of family and work. If family were on the left and work were on the right and we wanted to focus more time with family, then we can simply just shift the fulcrum towards the right so that we create more space on the left. If at any point we add more to a side that we have decided to lessened the space, the plane becomes tilted and everything on the opposite side falls down that proverbial slope of misery.

The only way to make this most effective is to evaluate all the parts that we want to have involved in our lives. For me personally, I cant just put family, work, and spirituality. I need to also include prayer time, reading, coffee shop time, and friends.

What do you have on your "plate"? Or should I say "plane"? Answer that question before you try to evaluate how to make your happiness the balance of your life.

Exhaustion

I'm tired!

That's definitely an understatement.

Relaxation has become somewhat of a chore now. I'm sure that there are many others out there that may feel the same way. I have to schedule my relaxation and sometimes its so bad that I tell myself that I need to find it. Here's the funny thing, when i finally do start relaxing and resting, my first question is "What should I do?"

I'm going to keep this short because I truly am tired. I guess what I am slowly realizing is that life doesnt always have to be about doing. Its more about enjoying. And if that means enjoying the nothingness that is in front of me, then I will just put a smile on my face.

Now that's what I call living the Zesty Life.

December 5, 2008

Comment from my buddy Tim in Australia:

Love the idea, i think we all need a bit of an attitude change man! Cos sometimes if we let a negative attitude get in our way, we lose out on wat we could gain in the day!

But dont forget not enjoying what we do helps push us for change, and sometimes find better things.

Anyway love the blog, keep it up man

December 5, 2008 6:12 AM

I find it funny how sometimes things just work out this way.

First I want to thanks my buddy Tim for leaving the comment. I appreciate the affirmation of the meaning of the blog, but I appreciate even more the insight on the other side of the subject.

The other day I recieved a phone call from my friend Nate. He told me that it was time to celebrate because he had just put in his 2 week notice at his job. A small part of the reason was because there was just so much work to do that was going nowhere. I really cant say that it was his fault because there are a lot of factors to his job that he cant control. Another reason he gave me, and this is a doozy, was because he was sad. I know, it sounds kind of lame, but allow me to continue and you can decide if it gets lammer or if it just makes more sense.

He explained to me that while he was working at a job that paid him decent money that he was sadder than he was when he had no job at all. It was hard to sleep at night because all he could think about was work or it was way too easy to sleep at night because he was being over worked. There was no fun in the job.

Now, according to my previous blog, he should have just tried to find the fun in it... But there are definitely circumstances that can change that rule as my buddy Tim had pointed out.

I have always said that I will never continue to work in a job that I dont enjoy and I have preached that to so many people as well. Some wonder why I have yet to really go to college and the reason is very simple. I dont want to invest time into a major that I am not very certain I want to do for the rest of my life. Now, I have nothing against those who have taken that risk and jumped into college. In fact, I commend you for being so bold.

I feel I have to be a bit cautious about this blog because I know that my words have such a great impact on your actions... right(you'll get used to some of my sarcasm).... but I want to make it clear that Im not saying that you should just up and quit your job or drop out of school. What I am saying though is that we need to take some time to evaluate where we are at. If you are in a situation that you are not happy with, take some time to evaluate other options to persue that happiness.

As for my friend Nate, he wants to possibly pursue a career in nursing because he wants a job that will enable him to help people more. Talk about a change for better things.

Comment and live Zesty

December 3, 2008

Birthday Shout Out to:
- Christine Maravilla
(That's right.... if you let me know when your birthday is, I will give you a shout out. Just another reason to read the blog)


Today I awoke after a short period of sleep. An hour and a hlaf to be exact. I woke up feeling sick and just not wanting to get out of bed... and yet, I drag myself to do the things that my body doesnt want me to do.

I noticed today, as I walked around, that many people feel and act the same way. They feel forced to be in places and they choose not to enjoy it... and thats something that i have to remind myself of constantly. There are certain things that I have to do because it is for the benefit of my future and well being. I have to go to work, I have to attend meeting that I have made commitments to, I have to pay bills, I have to ect. ect. yada yada yada.... Although in some ways those are things that I can control, it is still something that I have to do.... But one thing that I dont have to do in all these situations is that I dont have to no enjoy them.. I know, that was a bit confusing... Basically, I have control over the mood and tone of being in those situations.

Someone special to me had to remind me of that tonight..... I was told this person the old saying "Don't go to sleep in a bad mood. Make it better before you go to sleep." That could possibly explain why I dont sleep that much, but its still words that I need to remind myself of.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to this blog.

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Ryan Lopez, but I am sure that 90% of you already know that.

I was encouraged by a few people to start a blog because they just really loved hearing what I had to say and they wanted to be able to read it as well..... There is a possibility that I may have exaggerated that a bit, but either way, I am still writing this blog.

So, you may be wondering about the name of this blog site "living the Zesty life". Allow me to give a brief explanation about it.

About 7 or 8 years ago, some friends and myself decided to start calling ourselves "Zesty". It was actually a code word in reference to something else, but it is a name that stuck with us. For me though, being Zesty was a life style. To be Zesty was to live carefree in a smart way. To enjoy everything, especially the company of friends. To find joy in the most boring of activities.

My hope for this blog is to bring a little bit of that lifestyle to you through my words and viewpoints. Topics on the meaning of life, religion, politics, world events, pop culture, heros, inspirational quotes, literature, ect. are things that I will post here.... but most importantly, I hope to hear from you... I want to hear your thoughts and arguments... and I also want to hear topics that you would like to see my views on.

I want to make this clear now.... In no way am I saying that my views are the right ones and that my ideas are the best ones for you.

Although I am using this blog for me to express myself and collect my thoughts, this blog is really for you! For you to express your thoughts and ideas, and to have a civilized discussion with me about it as well as others who also read this.

If there is anything that you would like to see on here or any topic suggestion, please let me know.... This is all still new to me, so it is really you who can set the initial format of this blog.

Hope to hear from you soon!