The idea and attitude of balance rather than control comes to us, to our "I," as a choice when we know it is a choice. The approach of the becoming self always lives within us no matter if we have ever known or felt it was there or how long it has been since we felt aware of that self. It exists as does Frankl's idea of the defiant human spirit. It forms part of us no matter our awareness level. Once we take on the slightest awareness of the self and the possibilities it presents, we make choices based on those possibilities.
In choosing control, we build bastions against the forces of life. We attempt to command that which cannot be commanded. That act brings us to remember the story of King Canute by the seashore. The king felt so powerful sitting in his throne, he commanded the sea, its waves and tides to stop. The sea may have heard his command, but it came in nonetheless, and the king held to his throne and drowned. Those who choose control will almost inevitably drown as a result of that choice.
Children who grow up by the seashore often build sand castles, so called, structures made from sand on which they can lavish many hours and much sunburn. Like the child who began this writing, the child seeks to make form out of the endless, formless sands at the edge of the sea. The sea will eventually come in its inevitable waves, and the form built returns to the seeming formlessness of the undisturbed sand. At the first instance of this occurrence, a child might even cry at the loss. Salt tears can join the salt sea, but the sea and its waves will not turn back until the tide has fulfilled its rhythm. When the child matures, she/he might build a wall around the structure to preserve it, and it might well do that for a while, but the sea will still come in and inundate the object of the child's sense of form and control. King Canute in his power felt and acted like a child frustrated because the child finds she/he can't control everything. Upset may still come to the controlling child, and each tide brings fresh disaster. At some point, the child may mature and find the balance between itself, the sand, and the sea. Instead of seeing the inevitable as a threat and an eventual loss, a disaster, the child sees the process as one of endless possibility. When the sea returns the sand to its place by the seashore, the child is not left with nothing to show for it. The child contains the knowledge and experience gained in building the structure, and will return to a new structure using the knowledge and wisdom of the past. The child also gains the knowledge of the beauty of the growth of things and their return to elements ready for use again and again. When we seek balance, we seek the everyday newness of life, make use of the past as a vast library of experience and knowledge, and live in the present with all the challenges and achievements that it offers.
Instead of building bastions against the forces of the sea, we can learn to ride the waves in some contexts and in other contexts accept the passing of the old into the past and using memory to strive for more achievement in the present without being drowned in our own tears of regret. We can find and achieve balance. As the child learns that she/he can choose how she/he responds to things and circumstances that she/he cannot change, we can learn that we can always exercise our freedom to choose how we respond to any situation at any age.