The greatest tightrope walker ever!

Let us take a memory trip back on the time machine – 158 years to be precise. Meet one of the greatest tightrope walkers ever to have walked on our planet – Charles Blondin. He was a Frenchman, who performed extensively in the US. He was already known as “The Boy Wonder” in Europe, as far as tight rope walking skills were concerned, before he stepped on the shores of US.

He did the daredevil act of tightrope walking over the Niagara gorge on June 30, 1959 for the very first time. Distance was 1100 feet and the rope were held tight at 160 feet above the water. His to and fro journey across the gorge took only 23 minutes. He always believed that a rope walker was “like a poet, born and not made.” He made it across the Niagara gorge numerous times with theatrical variations like blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying his manager, sitting down midway to cook an omelette and so on. It was estimated that he must have crossed Niagara Falls 300 times and covered more than 10,000 miles on a rope in his career. His name became synonymous with tightrope walking.

In tightrope walking, the acrobat uses a balancing pole to transfer the weight evenly and strike a fine balance at every step on the way. One must be, both relaxed and alert at the same time. The skills of tightrope walking, which Blondin exhibited those days, is even relevant in the modern world.  Each one of us is in fact a “tightrope” walker in the multiple roles, which we play daily. Luckily, our lives are not fraught with such dangers, as Blondin faced. In case of Blondin, one false step and he would not have been there to analyse his mistake. We need to develop that sense of equanimity in the mind to:

• Engage contrasting stakeholders in our work and life, effectively
• Strike a fine balance between work and life

If one has to become a “Blondin” in the modern world, we need to start tweaking the work and life, to achieve that fine balance, always. Let us “Tightrope” walk our way to a life of joy and meaning!