Chasing Balance (Even If It’s Impossible)

I’ve reached an age where time is no longer measured in years but in cycles.

Cycles that repeat, transform, intertwine.

Cycles of work and rest, effort and pause, loss and rediscovery.

The world I knew as a child —slower, more analog, more innocent— has become a stream that never stops.
Data, screens, noise, speed.
And yet, amid so much change, I keep searching for the same thing my parents and their parents sought: balance.
Not as a goal, but as a way of being in the world.

I’ve learned that balance is not achieved, it’s pursued.
Like a ball that bounces and returns, like a melody that seems to resolve but stays open.
Like a garden that only bears fruit if you care for it day after day: sowing, watering, weeding, feeding, waiting.
And doing it with care, with attention, with the patience of someone who knows that time has its own rhythm.
Constant effort is what gives meaning to the result —not the other way around.

Sport taught me much of this.
In basketball, you learn quickly that the team comes before the self.
You pass the ball, cover your teammate, sprint back on defense even when your body asks for air.
Win together, lose together, rise together.
Balance between ambition and generosity, between wanting to stand out and knowing when to yield, between talent and discipline.
The same balance that, over time, you try to apply to everything else.

Music reminds me of it too.
Playing with others —whether it’s rock, jazz, or simple improvisation— means understanding that perfect sound doesn’t exist if everyone plays for themselves.
You have to listen.
Find the tempo, the volume, the space.
Harmony isn’t born from perfection, but from mutual listening.
And when everything fits, when the chords cross in the air naturally, you realize that such beauty is only possible because there was chaos, rehearsal, silence, and error before it.

It’s the same with almost everything.
In work, in love, in life.
I’ve built projects and worked for others.
I’ve led and followed.
I’ve saved, invested, and learned —sometimes late— that value isn’t always measured in money, but in freedom, in time, in coherence.
And that humility is the best antidote to the arrogance of thinking you already know enough.

We live in strange times: the climate is unraveling, machines are learning, and screens reflect more of us than they reveal.
Yet, amid the vertigo, I still believe that what matters endures:
the need to think for oneself, to learn without fear, to love without envy, to celebrate others’ success and learn from it.
The need to keep our feet on the ground —literally—, to get our hands dirty, to breathe real air and not just information.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of world my daughters will inherit.
And then I remember that our parents wondered the same, with different worries and the same fears.
Humanity has always lived between crisis and hope.
The trick, if there is one, is not to let change put us to sleep.
To stay awake.
Critical.
Aware.
With eyes open to the forest, the river, the sky —and also inward.

Because what truly matters is not surviving change, but doing so with love and awareness.
With meaning.
Understanding that every gesture, however small —watering a plant, passing a ball, striking a note, listening to someone nearby— is part of something greater.

In the end, balance isn’t found.
It’s practiced.
And even if it’s impossible to achieve completely, pursuing it keeps us alive.
Keeps us human.

Let the cycle continue.
But let it continue awake.

(Written at 47, in a world that keeps changing.)