Most of us are out of balance and suffering for it. We’re either too pragmatic or too romantic.

The pragmatist never stops to smell the roses. “What’s the use? Just get the job done, move onward and upward. Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

The romantic smells the roses and gets misty-eyed. “Roses are so meaningful. Let’s sit down and talk about our feelings and listen to some music and understand.”

You realize I’m not talking about actual flowers, right? I’m talking about the pitfalls of a too-flowery life and the emptiness of a life without them. I’m talking about the dangers of a lopsided perspective.

Good things come into conflict. And there is no choice so difficult as the choice between two good things.

Justice or mercy?

Honesty or loyalty?

Inspiration or accuracy?

Time or money?

Science or romance?

Which way do you lean?

A weak student will choose one side of a duality and disparage the other side while a brilliant student will stand between the poles and feel the energy that passes between them.

F. Scott Fitzgerald put it this way, “The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

Life is a tightrope.

Leaning is dangerous.

Balance is what you need.

“In fact, romanticism and science are good for each other. The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.” – Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction, 1971

I’m not suggesting that you seek watery compromise, that mind-numbing “happy medium” cherished by the frightened and the weak. I’m suggesting you find the electricity that flows when two poles of a duality are brought into close proximity.

Electricity is not a compromise. It is an altogether third, new thing that emerges from two potentials.

 “And so I will tell them one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest story of all – the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness. I shall try to demonstrate to them how these doubles are inseparable – how neither can exist without the other and how out of their groupings creativeness is born.” – John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952

Can you see the truth in opposite possibilities?

Your opponent isn't always an idiot.

Your adversary isn't always evil.

Learn to love your enemy and feel fully alive.

Reach for the electricity.

Roy H. Williams