Asymmetrical Beings In An Asymmetrical World
I still remember the day…
My life’s work had been persistently poured into one activity: swinging a golf club. I had practiced hours upon hours, days upon days; played in countless tournaments, traveled to endless golf courses, and worked as hard as I knew how in order to be the best I could possibly be.
And per usual, life didn’t magically line up with my “plan.” An injury to my body sidelined my golf career, bringing all momentum to a screeching halt. That’s the day I remember… the day when I realized my body wasn’t symmetrical.
Now, I know that may sound weird but it really was a novel realization for me. You see, I had always tried my best to even out my body so that it was as symmetrical as possible. Whether it was brushing my teeth with my left hand, running backwards to compensate for all the time spent running forward, shooting hoops left-handed so that I could be ambidextrous, or even using my left foot to drive on long-road trips to compensate for the small-twitch muscles in pushing the gas and brake pedals (yes, these are all real-life examples).
When the injury began—a muscle-strain in my left-rhomboid that was golf-swing specific—I began to see for the first time how asymmetrical my body really was. Because I played golf my entire life, my body developed asymmetrical strength since I only swung the club in one direction 99.9% of the time. Once the injury occurred, these discrepancies became glaringly obvious and it was a hard pill for me to swallow.
My hunch is: I’m not the only one who struggles with asymmetries, and my hope is we can better learn to embrace them after unpacking a larger treatise on symmetry in life.
Is Life Symmetrical?
Why are we so obsessed with overcoming asymmetry? What is it about symmetry that makes our hearts sing?
Initially, some of our obsession makes sense. As humans we crave order, balance, wholeness, stability, predictability. These are all common associations with symmetry. It is the reason for our obsession with finding a balance in everything (work-life, relationships, rest/recovery, etc.). Asymmetries are correlated with chaos, with feelings of imbalance, imperfection, brokenness, or unnecessary complexities.
As physicist Alan Lightman writes in his book, “The Accidental Universe:” “I would claim that symmetry represents order, and we crave order in this strange universe we find ourselves in. The search for symmetry, and the emotional pleasure we derive when we find it, must help us make sense of the world around us, just as we find satisfaction in the repetition of the seasons and the reliability of friendships. Symmetry is also economy. Symmetry is simplicity. Symmetry is elegance.”
Symmetries help bring a sense of calm, order, and peace to our lives that promotes human flourishing by design. But is life really symmetrical? Is balance even possible?
At a meta-level, symmetry doesn’t happen naturally. The second law of thermodynamics is entropy which depicts decay as the natural result if no action is taken or no force is applied. Yet with regard to the human body and to God’s design within creation, we often see examples of what appears to be near-perfect symmetry.
This is where the layers unfold…
On its surface, the human body appears to be symmetrical, but when you look internally there’s a different story at play.
According to the Austrian Journal of Basic and Applied Science: “It has been established that the two halves of the human body are in reality never symmetrical, e.g. the right lung is shorter and wider than the left lung and is trilobed, while the left lung is bilobed. The heart is more leftward with the apex pointing downwards and to the left. The liver and gallbladder are located on the right and spleen lies on the left in the abdominal cavity. The right kidney is positioned lower than the left kidney. The right suprarenal gland is pyramidal shaped and the left is crescent shaped. …” and on, and on it goes.*
The human body may have an appearance of symmetry, but the inner-workings are by no means symmetrical.
So too with life.
Is Symmetry Helpful?
This begs the question: is symmetry helpful? Is endlessly striving for balance and symmetry, in a world and in a body where perfect symmetry isn’t natural, even feasible?
I believe symmetry is helpful and beautiful, but I don’t believe it is natural and necessary in all facets of life, nor do I believe that we are best served by attaining or even striving for perfect symmetry.
This was an idea that I had to come to terms with when I shifted out of my career as a professional golfer and into my work as an entrepreneur. When I was a professional athlete, my job was my performance. And because of that, the goal was to live and be 95%+ optimal at all times. What I had to realize was, that for human beings, being 95% optimal was just selfish. It wasn’t practical. I had to learn to embrace a more asymmetrical way of living that was closer to 80% optimal. This was a major shift that took a while to figure out. Through embracing my own asymmetry, I have learned how true symmetry, full optimization, or a perfectly balanced life is not always attainable and definitely not practical.
How about you? Do you focus more on asymmetry or symmetry in your daily life? What does that produce / what is the fruit of that focus?
The hunch I have is that most of our focus is far too often on creating balance or symmetry when that goal isn’t even feasible. In fact, I want to make the case that the beauty in life is found in the asymmetry—in the ebbs and flows, in the good and the bad.
As G.K. Chesterton put it:
“It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man.”
Or, as our mantra on The Up and Comers Show puts it, we must strive to have intention in the tension. In other words, we can live intentionally even when things aren’t perfectly balanced.
Why Is Asymmetry Helpful?
While I don’t want to make the case that symmetry is bad, I do want to make the case that asymmetry is helpful.
Asymmetry can be a place of love and not fear when we have the right posture. It is a place of recognizing there is room for growth, for improvement, for progress. This is a place of hope.
Asymmetry is a part of life and when we recognize these asymmetries within ourselves, it helps us understand we are truly living life. One strategy to circumvent asymmetry is to live in a cocoon and never let the potential risk or danger in life have an effect on you. This would be similar to playing soccer in giant balls (called Zorb Soccer, Google it)—it limits your ability to run and navigate the field, reduces your foot skills, speed, and overall athleticism, but it protects you from any harm or injury.
Life is not best lived in a Zorb. As Paul Kalanithi said:
“If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?”
The first reason asymmetry is helpful is because life is asymmetrical.
Life produces asymmetry. There is a controlled chaos at play within the world. I see this is as the dance between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. This helps us see that we play an important role in the world, it is a role shared among all of humanity and it is to create beauty out of the chaos. We have the opportunity to make a difference and create balance and order in the midst of brokenness and decay, which is the second reason asymmetry is a gift.
Asymmetry is also helpful because it reminds us we aren’t broken, we’re just human. It shows us we all are asymmetrical and there isn’t a single person who maintains balance and order in perfect symmetry. This gives us freedom! It allows us to show grace to ourselves and others in the process of working with and through our asymmetries. For my fellow perfectionists out there, this is a powerful perspective to embrace, and it is a message we need to be reminded of often to help us get out of our own way and release our hold on unrealistic expectations, especially for ourselves.
A Healthy Approach
These are just a few of my thoughts on how asymmetries are helpful in life, but I’d love for you to consider your own ideologies around asymmetry in life. I want to challenge you to critically think about the way you view yourself and your life. Do you see your own asymmetry? Do you see life’s asymmetry? Are you resistant or welcoming of it? How can you be realistic but also optimistic in your approach? What mindset is best?
If I had to summarize my view it would be this: strive for balance, while acknowledging beauty in the asymmetry. It’s a nod or even an embrace of what isn’t symmetrical, allowing us to love ourselves and each other well. Ultimately, the result for this mindset is to have high hopes with realistic expectations.
My hope is that this perspective shift unlocks our ability to see each of our asymmetries as a blessing, a beautiful part of being human. I hope it allows us more opportunity to show ourselves grace and to love our imperfections and flaws, while showing greater compassion and empathy for the asymmetries of others.
Meg Dowell shared some wonderful perspective on this in her Medium post titled: “Maybe Our Obsession With ‘Finding Balance’ Is The Reason We’re So Unbalanced.” I’ll end with a few thoughts of hers:
“Perhaps balance isn’t what we’ve always thought it was — that in reality, balance is the state of holding yourself together when everything around you continuously falls apart. Or maybe what one person defines as ‘balance’ the other defines as a healthy acceptance of disorder.”
May we all embrace the asymmetry intrinsic to this dance called life, striving to live with intention in the tension, showing grace to ourselves and love towards others.
“Change and consistency are the two balancing weights on the seesaw of human experience, and God has given humanity the means to enjoy both of them by patterning the world with rhythm.” — David Gibson
*Zaidi, Zeenat. (2011). Body Asymmetries: Incidence, Etiology and Clinical Implications. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences. 5. 2157-2191.
