TL;DR
Balance is the key to a happy life. Taoism — especially the 4 Ascendant Tradition — gives us a clear way to understand and fix imbalance using four core life areas: resources, relationships, self-development, and self-maintenance. Most people wait until pain forces them to change, but the real skill is learning to notice the early signs of imbalance and act before things fall apart.
Taoism Helps You Find Balance
Taoism, particularly in the 4 Ascendant Tradition, is best equipped to help you find a balance in your life. Balance is the foundation of a happy person.
A human being requires balance in the 4 managements (resources, relationships, self-development, self-maintenance) or the 4 Taoist doorways. When these are unbalanced, you are in pain.
Pain Is the Signal That Something’s Off
The truth is, for you to seek a change in how you commit time and resources to any of the 4, you have to be experiencing a pain or you have to feel a lack of some sort. After all, if everything is going well right now, it is very difficult to fix something. It ain’t broke, so don’t fix it.
But here’s the trap — most of us only react when the pain shows up loud and clear. The real skill is learning to spot the smaller signals before things crash. Not all pain screams. Some of it whispers. That low-level tired you can’t shake? That feeling like something’s missing even though nothing is technically wrong? That’s pain too. It’s the soft warning that something’s off balance — not broken yet, but leaning hard in the wrong direction.
Balance Isn’t Equal — It’s Responsive
Now let’s talk balance for a second.
The real goal isn’t perfect symmetry — it’s functional awareness. You know what you’re emphasizing, and you stay honest about what you’re neglecting. You move things around on purpose instead of by accident. You notice when one area is starving before it starts biting back.
Balance is motion. Balance is constant. It’s not a goal you hit and walk away from — it’s a rhythm you stay in. Like breathing.
So yes, pain wakes you up. But don’t wait for a crisis. Learn to listen when your life just feels “off.” That’s the signal. That’s Tao tapping you on the shoulder.
Life Changes — and So Should Your Balance
Most people have a problem because, well, it isn’t broke right now, today. It may be broke in the future as your world changes. Anytime you imbalance your life, you are risking being caught at a major disadvantage in the future.
Let’s say you spend all your time developing your relationships, but ignore the hours you need to develop your finances. What happens? Well, you end up having friends, but being in poverty and having to rely upon your relationships for support.
Let’s say you commit a large amount of time to personal development and achieve great spiritual and personal progress, but you ignore finances to get there. What happens? Well, you end up being the person living on the remote mountaintop simply because you can’t afford to live anywhere else.
Of course, life is ripe with stories of the person that achieves great wealth, but loses relationships and spirituality in the process.
None of these is the desirable situation.
5 Reasons You Can’t Find Balance
Is it any mystery that you can’t balance your life if you didn’t know that…
Life needed to be balanced.
That there were 4 activities to be balanced.
You never heard of the problems of balance.
You’ve never looked at the tools of balance.
You don’t know what the tools of balance are?
How then can you pull off balance?
Start with Willingness — Then Use Better Tools
First, you must have willingness to balance — and then you must act on the willingness.
Second, you must use superior tools. The basic fact is that society and the social mind has left you ill-equipped for pursuing balance.