Balance.

When you are growing up and take your first steps, parents will say, “He or she has really good balance.” From there it takes off in many different directions. It might be the ability to balance your checking account or perhaps being described as way off balance and/or simply keeping your life in balance; this one word takes on so many different meanings as we grow older, yet in the end it gets back to the first tiny steps we took when we were around 9 months old. Life is a balancing act.

It seems hard to believe, but Y2K was 10 years ago; since that time we have seen the world remain on balance (thankfully computers on 12/31/99 didn’t push airplanes out of the sky, erase our assets, or cause the entire world to stop) and fall out of it. All you have to do is look back over the past 24 months to realize how out of balance life has been for many people. New decades often times bring in new thinking. If you consider where we were in 1999, preparing to enter a new century and decade there was hope and fear of change---and boy was it delivered! But like life itself we were able to regain our balance and move forward. I do believe unlike other new decades, we are going to see this one close on a tough note and start the next 10 years with a much stronger vision of where we have been and what we have learned.

What do I mean?

I am not an economist by any means, but if you track back the last say 40 or 50 years, you will find one common thread every time we crossed over into a new decade---the economy goes in fairly strong and is quickly weakened. Think about it. In 1970 we were embroiled in a war and inflation took off causing the government to finally say, “you can not raise prices--any prices.” The term W.I.N. stood for “Whip Inflation Now” and they meant it. How crazy was it? I used to build model airplanes and the paint that I used (the same one that came in a small glass jar that people sniffed to get high) went from .15 cents to .18 cents. The government went right after them and they were forced to go back to .15 cents. In 1980, we entered the decade and were immediately in a terrible recession; same thing happened in 1990, 2000. But this time it’s different…at least I hope it is. We are coming out of the woods, there is a clearing, and the skies are brightening---I just hope we can stay balanced because the world needs steadier feet to stand on right now, at this time!

The photo above was taken in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It was the middle of the day and my father in law and I were out shooting; in my world that means we were taking pictures as hunting is the other form of “shooting” referred to when in Idaho. Overlooking Lake Coeur d’Alene I noticed the moon through the trees. I wanted to take a picture that made it appear the moon was balancing on top of one of the branches; not too hard to take, all you have to do is move a few steps to get a better vantage point.

In the end, isn’t that what life is all about? You take those first few steps to look at life from a different perspective, all the while making sure you keep it all in balance.

Thanks for stopping by.