Balance

On finding it

Written on 10/20/2024

What I dream of is an art of balance. — Henri Matisse

Balance: happiness can be found through it. Unhappiness can be a result of an imbalance in life. Trying to draw too much from one well can deplete a source. I am becoming more convinced that I must take a multifaceted approach to a life that is full of beauty and joy. For me, too much birding can be a thing.

I began 2024 doing what I called a “biggest year.” It was my goal to see 300 species, two more than I ever had in a calendar year. Between January and August, nearly every moment that I wasn’t working or sleeping, was spent birding. I griped about it the entire time, and was worn out by mid-February. While I was attempting this, I experienced some truly beautiful moments, and saw species of birds that I hadn’t seen in over a decade. I don’t regret giving this a try, but eight months in, I quit, and promised myself that I wouldn’t ever try a big year again. Everything that I poured into birding took time away from my other passions in life, and I finally had to shut it down to address a biting feeling of alienation from the life that I wanted to lead.

Some of my favorite bird sightings/photos of 2024. Female Calliope Hummingbird, Clay-colored Sparrow, Greater Roadrunner, female Ring-necked Duck, two Greater White-fronted Geese with Canada Geese, Vermillion Flycatcher, Red-necked Grebe.

Birding, nature, and exploration are huge parts of who I want to be as a person, but they’re not all of me. When I do something, I tend to go all in, and I’m working on spreading myself around a little bit more. I am a very routine based person, but I think a lot of this pinpoint focus can also be attributed to generalized anxiety, panic, and obsessive compulsive disorders (not the kind of OCD where I like to keep my kitchen immaculately clean ha ha ha, but the kind where I believe that I have to repeat an action exactly 12 times, or my loved ones will suffer harm; the kind where before bed I check the number of steps I’ve taken during the day, and if it is a bad number, I’ll have to get up and take more steps to get to a good number). In addition to birding, I love playing the ukulele and piano. I enjoy reading and writing. I can’t get enough of playing pickleball. During the baseball season, I enjoy watching and cheering on the Los Angeles Dodgers. I have found that I can’t spend all my time birding without many of those passions being neglected.

There is enough time in a week to do all of these things, so long as one of them isn’t taken to an extreme. I now tell myself to do each one of them when I can. It’s okay for me to not be the best at any one of my hobbies, and is more important that I am enjoying a well-balanced life. I haven’t played the piano regularly in over a year. I watched fewer Dodgers games in the 2024 season than I typically do. I have been reading less books. I wish that over the last year I wrote and published more.

Since I gave up the biggest year, I have been continually reminding myself to not take all that extra time and pour it into some other singular pursuit. Twenty extra hours a week doesn’t mean that I should spend all of that time on one other hobby. I don’t have to play the piano for an hour, or not at all, I can play for 10 minutes if that’s all I have available. I can watch the White-winged Doves in the backyard for 15 minutes instead of going on a six hour outing. I can sit down on the couch and read for 20 minutes after work, then come to my desk and write for ten minutes. Half-assing all of my hobbies brings me much more joy than doing one thing fully and ignoring everything else.

This morning, as the sun rose, I filled my backyard bird feeders. I watched White-winged Doves and Eurasian Collared-doves jostle for space on the platform feeders while House Finches and House Sparrows hopped around on the ground, cleaning up the scraps that fell from above. I had plans to play pickleball with a group, but it started to rain while I was showering, so we canceled our game. I sat down on the couch and read a bit, then got up and played the piano. After some music, I came into my office to write. Now that the rain is clearing up, I’ll see if we can reschedule our game, but I’ll have to be done by six, so I can watch the Dodgers try to advance to the World Series. It’s been a damn good day, and if I can keep up this balance over a longer period of time, I am certain to be more content than I was when I was doing a biggest year. I need to love birds, but also take time to love everything else in this beautiful life.