Chapter 44: Keeping Your Balance by Moving On

The Words: Albert Einstein, 1930

On 5 February 1930, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to his younger son, Eduard, who was then nineteen years old. In it, he offered a simple picture that has travelled far since then. In my own words, he said that it is the same with people as with riding a bicycle: only while you keep moving can you keep your balance easily. The well-known short form, "Life is like riding a bicycle", is a later retelling of this line. The letter was written in German, by a father to his son, not by a famous scientist to the world. That is part of its charm. It is everyday advice, not a lesson for a lecture hall.

The Life Behind the Words

Einstein was born in 1879 and became one of the best-known scientists of his century. His ideas about space, time and light changed the way people understand the universe, and he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1921. Yet his own path was not smooth. As a young man, he could not find a post at a university, and for several years he worked in an office that examined new inventions. It was there, in his spare hours, that some of his most important ideas took shape. He also loved music and played the violin for most of his life.

His life kept moving in other ways too. He changed homes and countries more than once, and in 1933 he left Europe for good. He spent more than twenty years, the rest of his life, across the ocean and died there in 1955. Many people would find so much change unsettling. Einstein seems to have treated it like the road under a bicycle: something to keep going over, not something to fear. His science, too, was about motion. He later remembered that, as a boy of about sixteen, he had wondered what it would be like to travel beside a beam of light.

What the Words Ask of Us

The picture is easy to understand. A bicycle that stands still falls over. The same bicycle, rolling forward even slowly, stays upright almost by itself. Einstein does not say that we must rush. He says only that balance comes from movement, not from standing perfectly still. When life feels unsteady, our first wish is often to stop everything until the ground feels firm again. The bicycle teaches the opposite. Small, steady movement is what gives us back our balance.

Think of Marta, who is fifty-two and has just lost a job she held for many years. For a few weeks she stays at home and waits to feel ready. She does not feel ready. Then she begins to do small things: a walk every morning, one phone call a day, a short course in the evenings. Nothing is solved at once, but she notices that she feels steadier. She has not found the answer yet. She has simply started to pedal again, and the pedalling itself has given her balance.

Similar Words From Around the World

Long before bicycles, a thinker who wrote in Greek, Heraclitus, made a similar point. As Plato reports him in the dialogue Cratylus, Heraclitus said that everything moves and nothing stays still, and that you could not step twice into the same river. The river is never the same water, and you are never quite the same person. Heraclitus describes the world, while Einstein gives advice for living in it. If everything is moving anyway, the wise thing is not to fight the movement, but to move well with it.

The Daodejing, an old book of wisdom in Chinese, adds a second thought. In chapter 76, it says that living things are soft and bending, while dead things are hard and stiff, so the stiff belong with death, and the soft and supple belong with life. A rider who keeps her balance is not stiff. Her body makes many tiny, gentle corrections, leaning a little this way and a little that way. The old book and the scientist agree: life stays upright not by holding rigid, but by staying flexible and in motion.

Living It Today

These words can help almost anyone. A student who feels stuck on a hard subject can read one more page instead of closing the book. A tired parent can keep the day's small routines going, because routines are a kind of gentle pedalling. An older reader who has stopped doing something they once loved, such as singing, gardening or walking, can begin again in a small way. Moving does not have to mean going far or fast. It means not letting the wheels stop completely.

This week, choose one thing in your life that feels stuck, and give it one small push forward each day. Write one paragraph of the letter you have been putting off, clear one shelf, or take one short walk. Do not wait to feel balanced before you begin. Let the moving bring the balance. And the next time you see someone riding a bicycle, remember that steadiness and motion are friends, and that you are allowed to keep rolling.

Chapter 45: The Quiet Person I Want to Become

The Words: Miyazawa Kenji, 1931

On 3 November 1931, Miyazawa Kenji wrote a poem in a small notebook. It was found among his belongings after his death, and today it is one of the best-loved poems in the Japanese language. In my own words, it begins like this: not losing to the rain, not losing to the wind, not losing to the snow or to the summer heat, with a strong body, without greed, never angry, always quietly smiling. The poem then pictures a person who goes to care for a sick child, helps a tired mother carry her bundles of rice, tells someone who is dying not to be afraid, and asks people who are quarrelling to stop. It ends with these thoughts: called useless by others, praised by no one, a burden to no one — such a person is what I want to become.

The Life Behind the Words

Kenji was born in 1896 in a farming region in the north of his country, where cold summers and poor harvests were a real danger. He wrote poems and many stories for children, including a story about a night train that travels through the stars. During his life he published only one book of poems and one book of stories, both in 1924, and few people read them at the time. He taught at a school of farming, and later he went out to the farmers himself, giving advice about soil and fertiliser so that their fields would give more food.

Kenji was often ill, and when he wrote the poem, he was ill again and resting at home. He died in 1933, at only thirty-seven. He was a devoted Buddhist, and the wish to help every living being ran through his life and work. This explains the poem's quiet strength. It is not written by a strong, healthy man boasting of what he can do. It is written by a sick man in bed, describing the person he hopes to grow into: simple, kind, tireless and content to go unnoticed.

What the Words Ask of Us

The poem asks us to measure a life in an unusual way. It does not mention success, fame or wealth. Its person eats simple food, lives in a small hut and owns little. What makes this person great is steadiness in bad weather and readiness to help. Even being called useless does not matter, because the help is not given for praise. The poem quietly frees us from needing to be admired. It suggests that a good life can be lived almost entirely out of sight.

Think of Ibrahim, who is seventy and lives alone. Every morning he sweeps the path in front of his building, not only his own part. On cold days he knocks on his neighbour's door to ask if she needs anything from the shop. Few people notice, and nobody thanks him in public. When a young man once asked him why he bothered, Ibrahim only smiled and said that someone had to. Without knowing it, he is already a little like the person in Kenji's notebook.

Similar Words From Around the World

Saadi, a poet who wrote in Persian, gives the same spirit a famous form. In The Rose Garden, chapter 1, story 10, he says that human beings are limbs of one body, and when one limb is in pain, the other limbs cannot rest. Kenji's poem shows what this looks like in practice. The person in the poem goes east, west, south and north, wherever someone is suffering, because the pain of others is felt as one's own. Saadi gives the reason; Kenji gives the walking feet.

The Daodejing, an old book of wisdom in Chinese, adds a word about enough. In chapter 33, it says that one who knows others is clever, one who knows himself is wise, and one who knows he has enough is rich. Kenji's person wants little and is never angry, which is a sign of deep self-knowledge. Such a person is rich in the way the old book means. The two texts, so far apart in time, agree that freedom from greed gives a calm that no possession can give.

Living It Today

Not everyone can live in a small hut and walk the fields helping others. But each of us can borrow one part of the poem. A busy worker can choose not to lose to a bad day and to stay calm in one difficult meeting. A student can help a classmate without telling anyone. A parent can notice which child needs a quiet word tonight. An older reader may find that this poem reads differently with the years, and that being praised by no one feels less like a loss and more like a kind of peace.

This week, try one quiet act of help that no one will praise. Carry something for someone, listen to a person who is worried, or do a small task that others always leave undone. Do not mention it afterwards. Notice how it feels to give without being seen. Kenji wrote his poem as a wish, not as a boast, and that is the hopeful part: we do not have to be this person already. We only have to want to become a little more like them each day.