Hey there.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
I love coming across new words,
Especially when they open up hitherto unknown worlds of meaning for me.
It happened recently when I came across a quotation by Carl Jung.
He wrote that any one of us just might be the make-weight that tips the scales and saves the world from destruction.
Again,
He said any one of us just might be the make-weight that tips the scales and saves the world from destruction.
Make-weight?
My mind immediately went to making-weight,
That brutal wrestling ritual.
To make matches fair,
Wrestlers get divided into weight brackets.
And to have the advantage of wrestling at a lower weight.
In the past,
Wrestlers often did whatever it took to rapidly drop pounds.
I remember my high school self practicing free throws on the basketball court as my wrestler friends ran around and around and around the gym,
Often in garbage bags.
They were trying to get rid of every last drop of sweat so they could wrestle in that lower weight division.
I remember one friend lost so much weight that he had to have two sets of clothes.
And I also remember how pallid he looked during the season,
As if all the life and blood had been drained out of him.
Make-weight is different.
It is what gets added to a scale so it can reach a desired weight.
You might think of going into a coffee shop and asking for a pound of beans.
The barista will put some in a bag,
Weigh it,
And then add bit by bit until the scale reaches 1.
0.
So a make-weight is the just right boosting of what is already there.
It's the active addition of that little extra of whatever is needed to achieve a desired sense of weightiness.
To bring balance.
Balance is something so many of us long for.
And for a very long time I was looking for the one thing that would bring balance.
Maybe it was yoga or meditation.
We can also think it's love or financial security or or or.
What I've learned since is that balance is not a one and done.
In other words,
Balance is never achieved.
I'm gonna repeat that.
Balance is never achieved.
It is always being created moment to moment.
So what brings balance one day might be the very thing to create imbalance the next.
If we always live at a hundred and ten percent we will end up exhausted,
Depleted,
Nothing left to give.
But if we never risk,
If we never stretch beyond our comfort zones,
Everything can start to get smaller and smaller.
That means a make-weight is different every single time.
Because life is ever-shifting.
Because the needs of our bodies,
Minds,
And spirits,
Our world,
Are ever-changing.
This brings me hope.
And at the same time in a world plagued with decision fatigue,
This can feel like one more darn thing that is annoyingly elusive and out of reach.
Why can't anything be easy,
Certain,
Everlasting?
Well,
Because our world and our bodies and our minds and our spirits,
They are all dynamic.
If we hold on to this breath,
We die.
And if we give up,
If we think we can't make a difference,
We won't.
It is up to us to choose to add our good energy to the scale.
Jung said any of us,
Any of us,
Can be the one to make a difference.
Here.
Now.
Today.
A make-weight.
A single act for the common good.
The just,
Right boosting of what is already there.
And we know,
We know the power of an act can add up.
One by one.
And that is how we will save the world.
An old world that can feel so very heavy.
A new day world that we can fill with light.
Right where we stand.
