I wrote about this on Instagram a few weeks ago and it’s something I’ve just been thinking about ever since.

I posted this photo with the caption: I don’t often clean the kitchen at night. I usually just put away the leftovers and let things soak overnight. But last night I was hooked on the new S-Town podcast so I cleaned the kitchen while I finished it. And let me tell you–there is nothing that quenches my spirit quite like waking up to a clean kitchen. Days like these I vow a new lifestyle change–I’ll ALWAYS clean the kitchen at night to start tomorrow off on the right foot. But I’m not going to make false promises, today. I’m just going to unload the dishwasher and feel very grateful for this lovely morning. I will apply no guilt or expectations on tomorrow.

We talk all the time about how it’s important to have balance in your life. Like how it’s okay to have a donut because you ate a spinach salad for lunch and: balance. But you know what’s literally impossible to maintain? Balance.

But I guess that’s why it’s so exciting. You can balance something for a long time and the longer you do it, the more impressive it is but the harder it gets. You get tired or you simply don’t have the time to keep devoting to balancing these two very specific things while ignoring the rest. You always have to put it down. We’re not looking for balance. Balance is stressful by nature. There’s really no way to casually stand in tree pose for your whole life. There’s no way to casually keep track of all the “bad things” you do and try to add up enough “good things” to make sure that everything stays in line.

This is a system destined for failure—designed to keep you preoccupied. Designed to keep you down. Drop it, my friends. Drop it with me right now. Don’t give yourself one more ball to hold. You don’t need to keep track of another thing on your mental list. Sit in it when things are good and acknowledge it when things are bad because we get both. All day every day both exist together all the time. Like just this morning within ten minutes, a dear friend of mine was telling me about how her brother, who lives in South Korea, has been asked to pack a bag because they may be ordered to leave. And then she told me about how she signed her girls up for swimming lessons this summer and it’s going to be so cute. You can work hard for balance all you like but it’s just not coming for us. Everything’s co-existing all at once.

We don’t need a balance, we need a blend. There’s a reason that you stir vinegar or lemon juice in at the end of cooking that delicious, rich sauce. There’s a reason that sweet and sour taste so good together. I mean, look, when it comes to a tray of nachos, your favorite chip has a little bit of everything on it. You don’t go out to eat a chip and then balance with a spoonful of sour cream and then a jalapeno. Well, maybe you do. You do you. But the rest of us search out the perfect few chips that have just a little bit of everything on them.

And once I thought of it this way—my life as a tray of nachos, oh such freedom. Because even though the concept of balance is supposed to give us some liberty, the truth is that it’s just another thing to manage. And I’m so tired of managing things, you guys. Let’s drop it and invite in the concept of the blend.

What do you say?

XOXO, Lib