In search for the path of balance

I have this underlying need to break out from my everyday life. It sometimes feels like it is the securities in day to day life that hold me back the most. And I am not talking about personal life here, I am talking about the other work commitments I have. It seems that every time I go away and break that repetitive structure, I get inspired. And that inspiring energy keeps flowing even weeks after I come back and it seems to effect everything I do.

Of course the hasty mind would tell me to drop everything and just live the wild life of a traveling musician 😀 Part of me would very much like to do that, even for a while. But at the same time, I am not ready to uproot from my home in Dublin just yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be traveling, playing shows home and abroad, just not months at the time. So I suppose the trick is to find the balance.

Balance, isn’t that the magic word we all are aspiring to achieve? Now don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and I am extremely lucky (you make your own luck) to be able to do it in the first place. But I got here with hard work, and it is that experience of hard work that now make me scared to lose what I have achieved. But surely it is the same hard work I need to move further in my career?

You see, a creative mind is a complicated thing. It rarely is happy to just stand still. It needs to be fed, challenged and allowed to create and express new things. And if you have been told often enough that you are not concentrating enough on this or that, it eventually starts to eat you. You develop a set of morals and ethics that you want to work by. But if you are not allowed to do that, obviously your mind starts to rebel.

So I find my self asking, what is too much and what is enough? Where does that magic line of balance exist, or is it just an illusion? How much of what we do is because we want to do it, or expected to do it? I still aspire to do my job the best I can every day. I want to be better at what I do. I want to be the best I possibly can! It is not a battle against anybody else, just my self. So does that make the expectations I put on others around me sometimes too much?

And what about the expectations others put on me? Should I try to live up to them? Or should I just ignore them? We let the people in our lives influence us all the time. The trick is to once again find the balance between adjusting to others and following your own heart.

This is me trying to figure out the next steps in my path. I am trying to share with you my stream of thought, as I know many of you struggle with similar questions. I hope this makes sense, and I hope you find strength in knowing you are not alone. Deep down I know my unconscious mind is evaluating the pros and cons. Sometimes my unconscious mind is a lot more rational than my conscious mind 😀 And I know one day soon I wakeup knowing what are the next big steps on my path 🙂 I hope you find your path and in the meantime, have a great Saturday.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE