Living Unbalanced: Finding Meaning in the Mess

M Mehran

Balance is a word we hear often, especially in the modern world. Balance your work and personal life. Balance your diet. Balance your emotions. The message is everywhere: a good life is a balanced life. But what happens when balance feels impossible? What happens when life tips to one side, leaving us wobbling, unsteady, and uncertain?

This is the story of being unbalanced—and why sometimes, that’s exactly where we grow the most.

The Myth of Perfect Balance

From the time we are young, balance is presented as the ideal. We are taught to study hard but also play, to rest but also stay productive, to save money but also enjoy it. The problem is that life rarely follows neat proportions. Some seasons demand more work than rest. Some seasons bring chaos that can’t be managed by color-coded planners or meditation apps.

For me, the myth of perfect balance began to crumble when I entered adulthood. I thought I could juggle everything: a full-time job, side projects, relationships, health goals, and personal dreams. For a while, I managed. I created schedules, set alarms, and convinced myself that balance was simply a matter of discipline.

But then, life intervened. A family illness pulled me away from work. Bills piled up. My health slipped. Suddenly, the carefully constructed equilibrium was gone. I wasn’t balanced—I was barely standing.

Learning in the Tilt

Being unbalanced felt like failure at first. I judged myself harshly. Why couldn’t I “do it all” like everyone else seemed to on social media? Why was my life tilted, leaning so heavily into stress, uncertainty, and exhaustion?

Yet in those unsteady months, I discovered something important. Being unbalanced forces you to focus. When the scale tips, you suddenly see what truly matters. I couldn’t manage everything, so I had to choose. Some projects were put on hold. Some goals were abandoned. What remained were the essentials: family, health, and a little space to breathe.

It wasn’t the kind of balance motivational speakers describe—but it was survival, and it taught me clarity.

Society’s Pressure for Balance

The pressure to appear balanced is everywhere. Online, we see influencers promoting “morning routines” that combine exercise, journaling, perfect breakfasts, and flawless productivity. At work, we’re encouraged to be ambitious professionals while also being fully present at home. The result is often guilt: no matter what we do, we feel like we’re failing somewhere.

But balance is not always realistic. A young parent caring for children and working two jobs will not have the same balance as someone in retirement. A student preparing for exams may live in an “unbalanced” world of books and late nights. These moments may not be calm or symmetrical—but they are temporary, and they serve a purpose.

The Beauty of Chaos

What surprised me most about being unbalanced was the unexpected beauty within it. Some of my most creative ideas came when my schedule was chaotic. Some of my closest connections were forged during messy, unbalanced seasons—when friends and family came together, not because life was smooth, but because it wasn’t.

Poets, artists, and musicians throughout history have drawn inspiration from imbalance. Love that throws life off balance creates songs. Loss that disrupts everything inspires poetry. Struggle that tilts life heavily one way leads to stories of resilience.

Perhaps balance isn’t the only path to meaning. Perhaps imbalance, too, has gifts to offer.

Redefining Balance

I no longer chase the illusion of perfect balance. Instead, I aim for rhythm. Like music, life has crescendos and quiet moments, highs and lows, speed and stillness. A single note repeated endlessly would be dull. It is the changes, the tilts, the unsteady beats, that make the melody interesting.

Today, I accept that some weeks will lean heavily toward work, while others may revolve around family or rest. Some days will feel productive, others will feel like survival. That doesn’t make life wrong—it makes it real.

Closing Thoughts

To live unbalanced is not to live broken. It is to live human. Life tilts, sometimes gently, sometimes violently, and in those moments we learn what matters most.

Maybe balance is not the final goal at all. Maybe the goal is to move with the tilt, to accept the seasons of imbalance as part of the larger picture. For in the mess, in the unsteady steps, in the times we cannot stand perfectly centered—we discover our resilience, our priorities, and our humanity.

And that, in itself, might be the truest kind of balance.