From the time I was a teenager, my mommy used to tell me: “You must be like the lotus – – in the water, but not of the water.”
I didn’t understand this until decades later.
She meant live in this world – with its joy and heartbreak, work and family, noise, uncertainty and deadlines –
but refuse to let the world live in you.
The lotus grows in mud.
Pushes through murky water.
Blooms pristine on the surface – untouched.
Water doesn’t cling to it. It rolls off.
And that was my mommy’s teaching.
Live in the messiness, but don’t let it soak your soul.
Be engaged, but not engulfed.
Care deeply, but don’t drown in what you can’t control.
Do good work, but don’t lose yourself in striving.
And, over time, I have calibrated what balance looks like for me in everyday life:
- Enjoying success, but not letting my self-worth depend on applause.
- Working hard, but still carving out time for prayer, breath, stillness, and meaning.
- Loving people deeply, without trying to manage their emotions or carry what isn’t mine.
- Pursuing goals, while staying rooted in gratitude, not comparison.
- Taking care of my body – not out of vanity or pressure – but because it is the home my soul has been entrusted with.
- Stopping to appreciate Allah’s creation, from a sunrise to a moment of human kindness – reminders that we are held by something larger.
- Showing up in the world, while staying anchored in values that don’t shift with trends, opinions, or noise.
A life balanced between the material and the spiritual – present here, yet connected beyond here.
The world will touch us, but we don’t have to absorb everything it leaves behind. Sometimes the bravest thing we can learn is know how to let what lands on us simply roll off so we can keep rising.
Because in the end, that’s what the lotus teaches. Not perfection. Not escape. But balance – learning how to be fully here without letting “here” swallow us whole.
The lotus reminds me that balance isn’t a place you arrive – it’s a practice.
Some days I get it right.
Some days the mud wins.
But the effort to return to centre… that’s the work.
I’d love to know. What helps you stay balanced between the world you live in and the world that lives in you
