Do you have balance?

I overheard my daughter talking on the phone to her friend, asking her: “Do you have balance?” For a moment, technologically challenged that I am, I wondered whether she had lost it! I mean, imagine asking someone if the person had balance, casting aspersions on the person’s sanity! Of course, a moment later, I realised that the comment was actually meant as a concern for the friend’s account balance in her pre-paid mobile card.

My thoughts, as usual, went off on a tangent. I wish our human relationships also worked as effectively. I mean, there are so many situations created simply because things that should never be uttered are spoken in a fit of anger or in a hot temper, which result in a downward spiral of the relationship. I wish there was some method by which the ‘balance’ of words expire before things reach a cresendo, as there is more damage done sometimes, when one person claims he or she has ‘only been frank’!

When i handle conflicts, as a counsellor I see scope for a lot of situations where damage control could have been done, simply by silence. But then we do not have a built in cut-off mechanism, which could say, balance is over, please recharge! Yes, we could use our inner reserves of sanity and avoid unpleasantness when we find things getting out of hand, but then it is hardly to be expected of a spouse who has been harbouring a lot of unresolved issues, till the situation reaches a pressure cooker situation and the lid is blown off! When you have the other party also offering concern about the ‘balance’ (literally and figuratively!), then this too shows that the receiver is able to understand where the partner is coming from….

Maybe it is in such times, that you wish the battery is also low in the phone!!!

Mohana Narayanan