Balance

Tucked away in a parenting book I read nearly two decades ago — title and author long lost to time — was a metaphor that lodged itself in my brain and never left.

“Life is a balance, or rather, a juggle of balls. Some are glass. Some are plastic.”

The idea is simple but enduring: drop a plastic ball, and it bounces. Drop a glass one, and it shatters. The trick — the real tightrope act — is knowing which is which.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The author warned against falling into the trap of assuming that all the “family” balls are fragile crystal and all the “career” balls are rubber. Sometimes, the opposite is true. A moment missed with your kids might be one that easily bounces back. But a career opportunity? It might not.

Other times, of course, it flips. That bedtime story or awkward teenage conversation might be the glass ball you didn’t realise you were holding. Meanwhile, some of those high-stakes work pressures turn out to be surprisingly… elastic.

It’s a perspective that’s stayed with me — not because it offers perfect clarity, but because it grants permission. Permission to drop a few balls. Permission to be wrong about which ones matter most. And above all, permission to course-correct when you’ve mistakenly let a glass one slip through your fingers.

I’ve dropped a few glass balls over the years. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. But I’ve also learned to recognise the ones that bounce. That small wisdom has made all the difference.