To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure. When life suddenly reveals itself as intense, gripping and meaningful; when time passes and you're so engrossed in what you're doing you don't notice–it is there and then that you are located precisely on the border between order and chaos.

To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure. When life suddenly reveals itself as intense, gripping and meaningful; when time passes and you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing you don’t notice — it is there and then that you are located precisely on the border between order and chaos.

One of the great balancing acts in life is to be cautious and daring at the same time.

Cautious enough to avoid stupid mistakes, prevent burnout, and maintain a margin of safety.

Daring enough to bet on yourself, to do the things you would regret leaving undone, and to be willing to be uncomfortable in the short term so you can learn and grow in the long term.

All existence seemed to be based on duality, on contrast. Either one was a man or one was a woman, either a wanderer or sedentary burgher, either a thinking person or a feeling person-no one could breathe in at the same time as he breathed out, be a man as well as a woman, experience freedom as well as order, combine instinct and mind. One always had to pay for one with the loss of the other, and one thing was always just as important and desirable as the other.

Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.

Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.

There is a deep and "dialectic" duality facing every human being, which can be put this way: How is he to be entirely himself, and yet be fair to that world which he does not see as himself?

You have different sides to your personality, with conflicting needs.
Instead of ignoring one, make sure you balance them.
Balance time with others and time alone.
Balance your need for stability with your need for surprise.
Balance input and output, consumption and creation, stability and adventure, body and spirit.
Your opposing needs become each other’s remedy.

Balance, that's the secret. Moderate extremism. The best of both worlds.

Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.

fear is born of duality —

When it’s structured correctly, the dynamic that exists between the two Unique Abilities® can be magical.

Opposites and contradictions, that is our harmony.

The first of these basic principles is keeping inwardly calm and clear even in the midst of violent chaos; the second is not forgetting about the possibility of disorder in times of order.