What does a balanced life mean to you?

Having a balanced life means, at minimum, that attention is being devoted to the four components of holistic health: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Or to put it in integral terms, practice and time are spent within the spheres of Body, Mind, Spirit, and Shadow. It seems especially important for the body and mind that some equilibrium be maintained between work and play, activity and rest,  struggle and acceptance. The dour person needs to laugh a bit; the joker needs to grieve occassionally. The earnest person needs to sometimes get into the spirit of irony and the ironic person needs to be genuine. Paying the bills and sex must both have their due. Much of this, of course, is helped if the body is energetically in balance, which is aided by massage, acupuncture, yoga, and meditation. It seems important to bring up the Buddhist concept of equanimity here. In equanimity the mind accepts things as they are and doesn't get lost in reactions. There's a lovely article on this in the Winter 2005 volume of Tricycle, which quotes the Buddha:

                                                    As a solid mass of rock
                                                        Is not stirred by the wind,
                                                     So a sage is not moved
                                                        By praise and blame.
                                                     As a deep lake
                                                         Is clear and undisturbed
                                                     So a sage becomes clear
                                                        Upon hearing the Dharma.
                                                     Virtuous people always let go.
                                                         They don't prattle about pleasures and desires.
                                                     Touched by happiness and then by suffering,
                                                          The sage shows no sign of being elated or depressed.

                                                    -Dhammapada 81-83