One day you are on top of the world and the next day, you are wallowing in self-pity. In Baseball you can hit a walk off home run in the bottom of the ninth and be the hero! …and the next day be the goat when you strike out with bases loaded to end the game.

Life has so many ups and downs. You find true love and you are on a high, you lose true love and you are feeling mighty low. A small glass of alcohol can give you a high but consume too much and you will eventually feel the low, if not later that evening, perhaps the next day when you wake up with a hang-over. Drugs can be like that, delivering a quick high which ultimate leads to a low. Sweets can give you a quick sugar rush but once your body burns through it, you have a crash. Sometimes even the high of reaching a goal can turn into a low.. Now What?

Why are we looking for a high?

As a teen and throughout my adulthood, my friends can probably confirm, I was always looking for a high. it could have been in sports, accomplishments, acceptance and/or  love. As I got older, I hiked, I ran, each time I wanted to further and faster. It gave me the ultimate high! but why? With each and every high, was I looking to beat the doldrums of life? Maybe I always felt that my life was a low and accomplishing all the above items was a way to make my life better? Maybe it was an escape from the realities of life. Maybe I was depressed and these actions brought good feelings that I can hold onto. Instead of fixing the underlying issues, I looked for a short-term exit from the realities of life. Don’t look at that “me” over there with the self-esteem issue because now I’m over here catching the go ahead Touchdown! YEA!
(—After proof reading my blog, I realized how close this was to the DirecTV commercials “Don’t be like that depressed me!” 🙂   )

I still seek the highs of life but find they are tempered. Looking at my generic graph I used for my blog, you will see highs, lows and then a line going through the middle. The secret is finding the balance in the middle. If the core reasons for being “high” is to compensate for a “low”, you need to find out what is causing your “low”. If you can fix what is causing suffering in your life, you do not need those “highs”. It is hard to maintain that crazy roller coaster life and if you can smooth out those ups and downs, you will eventually find the “norm”, your “default” and your “balance”.

If you can eliminate your lows, you will find happiness in… just being normal!

Namaste!

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