Things fall apart when balance proceeds on leave. In the absence of balance, life is lived awkwardly. When one can’t find the thin line between excess and moderation, their life is already on a path of nothingness. An unbalanced life obviously will be an unfruitful one!
Sitting comfortably in the heart of the Volta region of Ghana is one fine co-ed school called Mawuli Senior High School. Indeed, the first time I nursed thoughts of drawing inspiration from mottos of Ghanaian high schools, the “Triple H College” as it is affectionately called, reared its head first!
Mawuli, apparently, is popularly referred to as “Triple H College” because of its motto “Head, Heart and Hands”. This motto touches on the theme of balance and is so deep, friends. Utterly awed by its depth, I have been poring over this “triple H” wisdom for some days now.
Thing is, when balance is thrown to the dogs, the center of life cannot hold. Like a ship, an unbalanced life will soon submerge on the high seas of life. When the troubles of life start trickling in, that life will drown!
A nation can’t survive without balance. An unbalanced family will wobble on its feet and soon tear apart. “Head, heart and hands” means every facet of life is important, thus, there needs to be balance. When one part of our lives gets more attention than the other, our lives become lopsided.
You see, one thing we find so hard to do as a people is… balance. Yes, balance. The path of balance is like a thin rope many of us find so hard to walk on. Uncomfortable truth however is, if living a life of balance is too much a thing for one to do, greatness is too far a thing for them to reach. One needs the head as much as they need the hands and heart.
Head. Heart. Hands. I have seen so many people wreck their lives because they focus on just one of these while the others waste away in deficiency. Life is like a balanced diet. You need a bit of everything in their right proportions. You need the head (knowledge) as much as you need the heart (passion) and hands (action)!
Our tertiary educational system, for instance, is lopsided because there’s no balance. There’s no link between the heads we’re given in school and the hands needed on the field. As if that’s not enough, the few hands that get to use their heads sometimes have little or no heart to do what they do. Balance is always important!
In marriage, one needs to love with the heart and think with the head. Love should be shown with the hands, too. In business, one needs the head to take timely decisions as well as the skills (hands) to do what they have a heart to do. Things will always fall apart in the absence of balance.
If you want to set out to start something on your own, for instance, passion is not enough. You need knowledge as much as you need to channel your passion into action. The head, heart and hand should walk hand in hand. The Bible even cautions that it’s dangerous to have zeal without knowledge!
In the family setting, there should be balance. In our schools, we can’t do without balance. In our spiritual lives, balance can never be overlooked. Constantly, the head should be at work with the heart and hands.
We ought to know our limits in life. We employ the scale of balance to know such limits. There’s only a thin line, for instance, between spirituality and gullibility; only a thin line between disciplining your children and abusing them. Find that thin line!
The “head, heart, hands” stands for balance without which this life cannot hold. Knowledge is important and passion is equally important. Action is very important, too. One can’t do with just one of these. You’ll need each of these in your backpack if you want to climb to the top of life.
Passion without action is frustration. Knowledge without passion is confusion. Passion without knowledge is vanity. If you’ve the heart to build a car someday, for example, it goes without saying that you should earn a head in car manufacturing so as to apply your hands to build that dream. When any of these is deficient, the dream becomes deficient, too.
Many young dreamers are struggling to find their feet in this life because they can’t connect their head to their heart and hands. Where they have the passion, they lack the knowledge and those who have the knowledge don’t apply them appropriately either.
Greatness is a summary of the head, heart and hands at work. If you want to use the head alone, you’ll bear unnecessary headaches. If you want to use the heart alone, you will always be broken-hearted. Well, if you want to use the hands alone, you may be hauled to a psychiatry home soon. Haha.
This week, put your knowledge into action… and make sure it is passion-driven. As we nurse big dreams, knowledge alone is not enough. We need action. We need passion. All hail Mawulians!
By Kobina Ansah
The writer is a playwright and Chief Scribe of Scribe Communications.
Editor’s note: Views expressed above are solely those of the writer and do not in any way represent 3news.com