Balance and Specialization

The Tower of Pisa has been famous for centuries because it has stood so long while leaning some sixteen feet off center. In this it is an exception for most towers that have leaned that far have fallen and are no more remembered. Balance in life is one of the essentials of safety, of happiness, and of wholeness. Lack of balance has been the cause of more misery and mistakes than men can calculate.

In academic activities, in professional pursuits, and in other occupations also, young people most people are mostly dealing with material matters. By the very physical necessities of life, by the fact that we must be fed and clothes and sheltered, many, if not most of us, are largely devoted to a consideration of physical factors. Our reading, our thinking, our living are largely along these lines.

This is a day of specialization, and to “succeed” it seems that a man must know more about some things than he knows about others. He must be able to do some things better than he is able to do others. But specialization can be carried to a dangerous degree, and can lead to an educated illiteracy an illiteracy which knows of some things to the latest letter of the law, and of other things too little an illiteracy that could find itself on far tangents along narrow little lines.

There are so many tangents that could take us far from the truth as well as those that could take us toward it, and for a wholeness of life we all need to temper our thinking, and to keep a balance in every avenue of every activity with time and place for prayer, for acquaintance with the timeless truths of scripture, and the thoughtfulness for the great eternal intangibles as well as for the things that we can touch. Every person is a composite being, with an immortal spirit within, and for a fullness of life we must feed the spirit as surely as we must feed the flesh.

Tangibles we cannot take with us, but intelligence and love and spiritual qualities we can. And no matter what a person’s particular pursuit, he should be ever aware of the need for a wholeness of life, for a wholeness of understanding for balance.