Balance

I have been thinking about the balance of things in life. As a student, it is hard to juggle all the different aspects of life. And I don't think I have been doing a very good job of that recently. For class we had to read a few of Sir Philip Sidney's Elizabethan sonnets. Here is one of them that has to do with sleep. I have been thinking a lot about that as well recently because of the lack I am getting.

39

Come sleep! O sleep the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw:
O make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland, and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.

How does one juggle the balance of living with schoolwork and everything else that creeps into our busy days? I know that most people's life in this age is driven by speed. But why does this have to be? I had a good talk with a professor today about several things, one of them being balance. He had good advice. Sometimes, if it's getting to be too much, we may just need to drop something and let it go. It could just be that you resign yourself to a zero on that project. He asked me if I could do that. And honestly, being the perfectionist and academic student that I am, I think that failure is one of the hardest things to deal with. I don't know if I could resign myself, even if it is killing me. That is what I am learning: how to be in that place- where failure may happen and even be necessary for survival. It's the hardest lesson of all.