Failing or Flying?

Life is a balancing act, plain and simple.  The older I am the more I have experienced its certainty.  We often feel out of kilter, on the brink of disaster and then most decidedly something will come along to shove you right over the edge.  Any extreme is destructive, and yet we watch and cheer on those who have become obsessed with whatever talent or undertaking.  We compare ourselves to these geniuses, silently praising and dreaming for our own unrealized successes and yet knowing that we would have to give up all that we had for that one wish.  We carry it around, hoping to use it one day, but realizing that our time has been spent, we would've had to have devoted ourselves to that cause at the beginning of our lives.  So we pack it away with the rest of the monkeys on our back, and keeping hoping in vain to see such a dream come to fruition.

On to our daily tasks, which alone are quite the burden to bear, we tend to the tedious, the unrewarding daily grind.  Will today be the day I am acknowledged for my martyrdom?  Will today be the day I am rewarded?  We haven't time for such thoughts, we put it aside for a more urgent need like no toilet paper in the bathroom.  We laugh, we endure, we are faithful to the people we love and choices made.  But in this balancing act, where do I find myself?  Has that season passed, never to return?

I spoke at length with a mission companion about these types of passions, she already had her Masters at 24.  The question was presented, "Would you rather be good at one thing, or mediocre at many?"  I found myself quickly responding affirmative to the latter.  We would have to neglect much in order to be good at one thing.  So here I am, brown eyes, brown hair, average fluffy figure with no education, little talent, and no determination to pursue any dreams for fear of neglecting my prior responsibilities.  Is it fear of failure or priority that leads me to my choice.  Am I using my children as a crutch, or am I being the kind of person God would have me be, selfless and serving?  But then again he said to love my neighbor as myself, does that mean I've been short changing myself or is it all just a matter of timing and all possibilities will return once my greater objective has been served?  Am I to keep all the balls in the air, or abandon the burden of one dream for that of a better?

I think we'd like it to be OK to be extreme, good delineated from the bad, certain that we are on the right side.  But have you ever considered the right side is smack down the middle.  Not compromising value, but finding the EXACT compromise.  And yet most assuredly, as distinct is each individual and each family it depends on the situation.  For example.  When someone asks, "Do I look fat?"  it must be a balance between not encouraging the non-flattering jeans and loving and protecting the feelings of another.

I know this isn't my rather light humor.  But it's a subject that I keep returning to.  Mostly, I think we need to balance them, not all at the same time, but through the length of our lives, not missing the moment for the past or future... What has your experience taught you, and where do you find yourself on the scale?