Mastering flat waters, choppy seas, or even a 4.3 sail during a storm in windsurfing and life requires continuous effort to find balance. However, the notion of balance seems to have been misunderstood.
When life feels like a large sail in a storm, and you are struggling on the water, windsurfing may feel like Sisyphus' curse where you'll never reach your goal.
You keep falling off the board, or you get catapulted and slammed into the rough water.
Repeating yet another waterstart, getting back up on the board, and riding another wave requires both efforts and sometimes more than a pair of balls.
What's a good way of balancing rough terrain in water and life?
"Windsurfing is a balancing act, much like life itself. Balance is not a constant state, but a motion instead," underlines Henrik Beyer, author of "Health & Fitness for Windsurfing."
"Balance in windsurfing is like a clock's pendulum, constantly moving; if you try to find a constant stable middle ground, you'll fall, just like the pendulum will stop if it stays in the middle."
A Sensitive Equilibrium
Reaching perfect balance in life is very much like windsurfing - a constant balancing act with all the physical, social, economic, and spiritual, as well as mental factors that combine one's life.
A certain amount of effort is required depending on whether life is choppy, stormy, or smooth sailing.
We have heard countless gurus tell us about the importance of trying to find a balance in life, and maybe they have a point, as we sooner or later will fall if we stop trying to find our balance in a wind gust.
In windsurfing and life, it may be helpful to realize that we may find that sweet spot of the perfect balance between our sail, wind, and board, but only momentarily.
Occasionally, we might lose our balance, but life is a forward-moving concept, and it can only go ahead towards the next wave.
Whether you define success as completing a forward loop or keeping your balance while uphauling is irrelevant.
In the art of balance in windsurfing and life, the key is finding satisfaction in the balancing act itself.