Principles – Steps to Achieve Balance – 1/10/2016

   We have tackled the issue of keeping one’s roles and goals in balance and not to let one goal prevail over the others. Principles play an important role in one’s life. Principles judge the way people choose their goals and deal with others. Someone once said that respecting others has nothing to do with his interest in them, it is just a principle he learnt since his childhood. “Moderation” is another principle you should stick to as its absence is an open door to problems. It can be considered the twin of balance. If moderation prevailed, people would live a balanced, comforted life without pain. A moderate person knows that there is no absolute good or bad person and no completely right or wrong opinion. So if you want to form a moderate opinion about a situation, matter or person, you should balance between heart and mind and be objective. You shouldn’t judge actions according to their doers and whether you like them or not, but rather you should consider the action itself in an objective point of view, hence , you will be judging honestly and fairly.

Habits:

   Your habits may be the reason of your unbalanced life. Bad health habits affect your body negatively as much as the disturbances and wrangles badly affect your psyche. Habits and behaviors that don’t agree with morals lead a person to the brink of pain. Moreover, spiritual negligence or strictness creates tensions; all the aforementioned cause the inability to fulfill duties and severe tensions in relationships.

Danger:

   Losing balance is undesirable matter due to its negative effect on people and societies. Individually, imbalance affects physical and psychological health negatively and weakens family ties. It also has its dramatic effects on a person’s professional life. It also drives people to be in unstable mental and emotional condition and makes them unable to fulfill their duties or act and judge soundly. It leads man to go astray. On the other hand, hatred, division and injustice prevail in imbalanced societies and lead to their fall. On the opposite side, balance keeps a person away from exaggeration and helps him to adopt a broad mind amid all the tensions around and a positive outlook toward persons and situations.

   Therefore start by evaluating all your personal, practical aspects of life and your relation with your family. Define your weak points in your habits and principles by checking your goals, duties, relationships, emotions, ideas. Change what you consider inappropriate and lean on God with a willpower and true determination to turn over a new leaf.

  Anba Ermiah,

General Bishop

Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center