The balancing act

First, here's a picture of my cute animals:

The black cat is Ellie. She is a rescue cat that my boyfriend got me for Christmas and she's about 9 months old. The beautiful Border Collie is Ryott. She's actually my boyfriend's dog, but I claim her anyways.  She's about 3 and 1/2 years old. They're both precious animals and they absolutely love each other. It's cute to watch them play together. I'll try to get a video of it to post on here at some point.

As I have said in previous posts, I'm spending my summer relaxing and getting the new apartment set up, but soon, I'll be busier than ever and will need to learn ways to keep myself focused to ensure that I'm giving law school 100%. When I graduate from law school, I want to know that I've tried my hardest and have no regrets. I've been thinking more and more about the importance of balance in one's life and I think this will become especially important from this point on.

A healthy balance in one's life is a very difficult thing to achieve. Between school, work, family, friends, significant others, hobbies, social commitments, etc., it takes a very self-aware person to perform this delicate balancing act. I am far from competent at doing such a thing. In fact, I naturally tend to immerse myself in one activity/thought/task/duty and let my other commitments nearly fall to the wayside, so to speak. This is, of course, the opposite of what I suggest we all learn to do and I'm hoping that writing these blog posts will help me sort out ways to successfully achieve balance. Everyone needs balance in their lives.

So how do we do it? My answer is self-awareness and an understanding of eudaimonia, but this is a very vague answer and of course needs elucidation. I'm not ready to give a full answer yet. I am going to start seeing a woman who specializes in teaching mindfulness, which is - in a nutshell - the Buddhist practice of self-awareness, both physically and mentally. As I begin to learn mindfulness and all that it entails, I will continue to write about this subject. I think the practice of mindfulness may be essential to learning balance in my own life and, hopefully, can help you to achieve such a state as well.

Take care,
--Nan