Bamboo Balance

Walking through the tall stalks of bamboo while the lyrical sounds of a babbling brook filled the air made me forget for a few minutes that I was in the middle of downtown Chicago. I was spending the day at a conference at the Hyatt Center and the outer concourse of their building is a bamboo forest in front of floor to ceiling windows. Bubbling fountains emulate the sounds of a mountain stream. Glass benches provide places to sit and contemplate or just people watch.

It was interesting to see the balance the bamboo brought to this very high tech and busy office sprace. You could see the stress leave people’s shoulders as they came off the elevator and walked through the bamboo forest. A sense of peace seemed to come over people as they sat on the benches and talked to their coworkers or engaged in calls with their families.

The cold marble of the opposite wall was softened by the reflection of the bamboo on the black shiny surface. The juxtaposition of the corporate civility and the wild bamboo made me realize that sometimes balance wasn’t at the center of the teeter totter, sometimes balance means going back and forth between the extremes of life. The sadness and grief of losing someone is balanced by the joy of remembering the happy times you spent with them, the extra hours spent working on a project are balanced by an extra long vacation at the beach, the time spent in the corporate jungle is balanced by time spent in the woods.

I’m not the only one finding lessons in bamboo lately. Charley Forness over at Scribe for the Tribe wrote an excellent article about achieving success by emulating bamboo and his lessons were on my mind when I walked into the Hyatt Center and saw the bamboo grove. As I sat in that peaceful oasis, I was especially thinking about his advice to not listen to your critics and to just become who you were meant to be. I’ve spent a lot of time in my life listening to people tell me why I shouldn’t do something and I’ve realized its time I started listening to myself. That’s the only way I’m really going to become the person I was meant to be and that is true bliss.