{"id":23649,"date":"2023-02-27T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23649"},"modified":"2023-02-16T11:27:06","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T19:27:06","slug":"walking-the-balance-beam-signing-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/02\/27\/walking-the-balance-beam-signing-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking the Balance Beam<\/em>: Signing off"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems like the most difficult thing to achieve in life is balance: to live life with calmness, with harmony. I see people in a big hurry all the time. We\u2019re always wanting to achieve, to be the best, whether it be in work, in school, or in our homes and families. This is often displayed in social media and all the other escapes in this constantly expanding world.<\/p>\n

There are all these accounts showing perfect families with perfect smiles, perfect vacations, perfect wardrobes, perfectly prepared dinners, even perfect pets showing a mix of fluffy, wide-eyed mischievousness and adorable devotion to their owners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Walking the Balance Beam<\/em> is a column appearing in every issue of Nexus<\/em> (photo by Emily Welch).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone knows that most of these public posts aren\u2019t reality, yet hiding behind these masks of Stepford falsehood seems to be an ever-rising need in society.<\/p>\n

How much of real life is kept in the dark? I suppose it varies from person to person, of how many vulnerabilities people are willing to let out in the open. About eight months ago, I decided to stop contributing to this kind of social media. I went from someone who scrolled through their various accounts several times a day, to someone who has (almost) removed themselves completely from that lifestyle. My various accounts still exist\u2014I haven\u2019t had the courage to erase them yet, I just rarely indulge. What\u2019s the result? I was hoping this might bring me some inner peace, a fresh slate to begin offering and receiving genuine friendship, where value wasn\u2019t placed on how many likes I had accumulated in the last 24 hours. Also, I was seeking balance in the amount of extra time I would have.<\/p>\n

I suppose, in a way, I\u2019ve received this. It\u2019s a big relief to not partake in online debates about how many holes are in a straw; it\u2019s a huge weight off my shoulders to not join in the latest green-vegetable craze that promises to make me healthier, smarter, thinner, younger.<\/p>\n

With all this extra time I have now, I\u2019m able to go running eight kilometres daily, I\u2019m getting to all my appointments early, I\u2019ve started a file system where all my writing projects and school assignments are organized alphabetically and in exact order of when I started them, plus I\u2019m able to meditate in the morning and get to bed at a reasonable hour\u2014the rewards are endless, or at least would be endless if any of these accomplishments were true.<\/p>\n

I still very much struggle with time management, and shutting down my social-media life has not solved this. I have, though, found some balance in my inner self. I can concentrate more easily on academics when I\u2019m not distracted with notifications. I seem to be genuinely more relaxed than I was before, but that could also just be because I\u2019m living a calmer lifestyle now.<\/p>\n

I do encourage you to try this experiment, if you\u2019re seeking some balance. After all, it\u2019s a jungle out there. It\u2019s nice to discover some serenity in silence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems like the most difficult thing to achieve in life is balance: to live life with calmness, with harmony. I see people in a big hurry all the time. We\u2019re always wanting to achieve, to be the best, whether it be in work, in school, or in our homes and families. This is often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,283],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-february-22-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23650,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23649\/revisions\/23650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}