9 ms·

Maybe We All Need a Little Less Balance

197 points by tim_sw 9y ago

d--b 9y ago
So? We need more balance between a balanced life and an unbalanced one? Seriously though, who is that guy talking to? Does anyone truly believe that having a perfectly balanced life makes one happy? Haven't they made thousands of movies about this? Sorry for the negativity but "live a little" seems a bit of a shallow advice from the New York Times...
boxbag 9y ago
I can relate to what is being discussed in this article. For the last 2 years I've been focusing solely on my startup at the expense of my relationships with family and friends. So far, it's been working alright because we're still quite young and I don't feel like I'm missing out on any significant things in their lives. But now I'm at the point where I don't need to sink 16 hours 7 days a week and I'm really struggling with reevaluating my identity which has been so closely tied with just building shit constantly
- csallen 9y ago
  I did the same thing in my early 20s and came to regret it. Especially since I know now that if I'd found the right mentors and/or learned the right things, I could've made better decisions and gotten much more accomplished in less time. You live and you learn. The identity thing you mentioned is big, too. We can turn ourselves into machines, but it robs us of our personalities. Like anything else, being good at being social requires practice. You get rusty. It also helps to have interesting things to talk about, and work talk gets boring fast. If that's all you have to talk about, you start to wonder what happened to the rest of you, and so does everyone else.
alansammarone 9y ago
This is a very good point. People tend to look for more "balance" when they are unhappy with whatever their main focus is right now. The obvious example applies: people don't like their day jobs very much, and so they go around advocating more "work-life balance" to compensate for it, because they feel it is a necessary evil. It's not (at least in most cases). If you're not happy with whatever your main focus is, you need to change it, not add more stuff to compensate. (Of course, there are still some things that you should pay attention to apart from your main focus, like your health and family. This is not the point here).
- Chiba-City 9y ago
  I was lucky to love my job for the outcomes and not just the paychecks. Is there any central pooling of contract work around more important Open Source projects? Here in DC we have interns working for free or cheap on good causes they hope will lead somewhere. I would think many software devs not raising families would take lower steadier rate for work they can talk about and be proud of. Many governments are seeking stable OSS office automation infrastructure. Stability is the goal compared to pyrotechnics. Is that a solved problem yet?
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    > Here in DC we have interns working for free or cheap on good causes they hope will lead somewhere. I would think many software devs not raising families would take lower steadier rate for work they can talk about and be proud of. It sounds like they made a bargain[0] with "Phil, the Ruler of Heck and the Prince of Insufficient Light." [0] https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/855574/855574_original.gif https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/855574/8555...
    - teddyh 9y ago
      Link to original: http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02 http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02
- _delirium 9y ago
  Is it really true that in most cases people can find a day job that isn't a necessary evil? People usually work because they need money to live, and employers usually pay money because they want stuff done that is not interesting or enjoyable enough for anyone to do as a volunteer. Most jobs in developed countries are service jobs, and few of these are things people love to do, they're just things that need doing, and someone is willing to pay for them to be done: working restaurants, inserting IVs in hospitals, caring for elderly, picking up trash, cleaning offices, staffing call centers, answering email on behalf of the CEO, processing insurance claims, driving Ubers, etc. So there is some amount of needing to do something you don't necessarily love for a job, but it's perfectly reasonable for you to also not want this to consume your life 24/7. I mean, if you can achieve the feat of the photo at the top of this article—getting paid to surf—that might be great, but that's not really the norm for jobs.
mrhappyunhappy 9y ago
Interesting how in US I always see articles talking about how to find happiness. Ever since I moved to Japan I haven't heard this theme yet. I am made to wonder if consumption based societies have a bigger issue with being unhappy than those that strive for conservative lives. One one hand the author has a point. I can think back to activities where I was happiest that involved being consumed wholly by that activity. On the other hand, there are moments where I think I'd be better off if I didn't focus so much on that one thing. I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than I'm tired of these articles that seek to define ways to be happy. This really says something about our society or perhaps about the nation. Is there a happiness crisis? I don't see it happening here in Japan but perhaps I'm disallusioned as I have not fully integrated into this society.
- Retric 9y ago
  Japan seems to have given up the idea of happyness for indirect proxies like a good job etc. US, has gone down a similar path, but has this crazy idea you should be happy and successful. France IMO is closer to the ideal that happyness should be the goal not a side effect.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  No the US is just irrationally obsessed with happiness.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    Decades of advertising created a deep connection between happiness, individualism and consumerism. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Yes. It's mainly that happiness is being used to sell stuff to people (that will "make them happy"). And it's not much better when they are selling them "experiences".
- 9y ago
Chiba-City 9y ago
I try to live in Skill Sprints that direct focus for a few years. I pick things that combine history, books, places and tool mastery like photography, music training, cooking, core muscle exercises or even Buddhist Pali suttas and walking meditation. You have to create your series of time boxed challenges. With a daily drumbeat of global finance news and HN it keeps me out of trouble. Our notational computer process logic and memory access hierarchies turn out to describe almost everything worthwhile. [ed. Did not want to skip music training.]
- goldfeld 9y ago
  Fitter, happier, more productive.
0xcde4c3db 9y ago
One way to look at it is that balance is fundamentally about stability, not neutrality. Maybe your fulcrum isn't at the center of all possible aspects of your life, and maybe that's not something that needs to be fixed.
RyanRies 9y ago
You do have the strongest experiences and form the strongest memories (both good and bad) when you are at your most unbalanced. But it's also unsustainable to stay unbalanced for too long.
stephengillie 9y ago
Instead of a work-life balance, consider a state-of-flow/state-of-social balance. Spend chunks of time heads-down in solo project; and spend chunks of time between tech talk, elevator pitches, and tangential discussion. Instead of striving for an eudaimonistic balance between the two, let the balance freely oscillate between those extremes as feels natural for you.
yters 9y ago
I've wondered when people tell me to be more balanced if it is for my good or because people feel uncomfortable when someone is working very hard on something. I do know I've had better success in things with single minded focus, but when more balanced others find me more interesting. Perhaps I need to balance my periods of balance and being focused.
- landon32 9y ago
  I think a lot of people are stressed or sad when they are just going 100% on something difficult. They are probably just looking out for you. When my friends get crazy busy for a long time on something I tell them to take little breaks and balance it out because I know they don't feel good. For some people though, working all the time doesn't feel bad. That could be the case for you.
  - jtmarmon 9y ago
    The thing that sucks about going 100% on something difficult isn't the thing being difficult, it's when you fail relentless for an extended period of time that makes you burn out.
    - smokeyj 9y ago
      I've taken a big step back from start up culture. I don't work more than I have to, I travel more, I meet interesting people. The funny part is now I feel more energized and connected with what people really need. Very little of it has to do with apps or algorithms. My feeling when being in startup mode was essentially the sunk cost fallacy. I've already put this much work in, success must be around the corner. But I look at some of my peers with similar mentalities and you can't help but feel they're too focused on the day to day without realizing the product and demand is garbage. Life is short, enjoy it.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I do know I've had better success in things with single minded focus You might have had better success "in things", but did you also had better success in relationships, family and personal health? Because that's part of the balance thing.
elgenie 9y ago
An undiversified portfolio maximizes possible upside … and possible downside. If you have a rational level of risk aversion, that should persuade you to strive for balance and a more certain return. The fact that in this case the portfolio is of "life elements" rather than "shares of companies" shouldn't change the conclusion.
- landon32 9y ago
  I disagree- when doing something in life you can tell very quickly how it makes you feel, but when investing in a company it can be difficult to see how the company will do.
cortesoft 9y ago
I think the idea is to be balanced across a larger time frame, not balanced at every moment. Sometimes, you might be more into one thing or another, but you have balance across a decade or some other time scale.
- haffla 9y ago
  Exactly, you can have these extreme moments in your life and still be balanced. The behavior the author is advocating is reactionary.. overly negative, relax please!
branchless 9y ago
> “the path to fulfillment in life, to emotional satisfaction, is to find what _you_ really excites you and channel your all into it.” That reminds me - what happened with the proofreader strike again? This article is way out of touch. We know what we want, but we cannot have it because we are in a system that forces us to work. And we cannot break out of that system because of land costs. We want to go cycling. To spend time with our kids. To sit on our ass if we so choose. To help others. To stroll. But we gotta pay the rent. I guess this guy needs to spend a bit more time at the office away from his family to "achieve excellence" in basic proofreading. I wouldn't normally be so harsh but who is this guy to tell us what life should be like when he seems so out of touch.
- eighthnate 9y ago
  > This article is way out of touch. It is and it isn't. People have to write articles to make money. Most articles just say things to say them because the journalists/authors have to earn their pay checks. > We know what we want, but we cannot have it because we are in a system that forces us to work. "Let them eat cake"... Exactly. We all want shelter, food, necessity and money to survive. > who is this guy to tell us what life should be like when he seems so out of touch. He's just some guy who is trying to get you to click and read his articles so that he can make money. Just like the evangelical preachers or the self-help gurus. They are all in the business of making money. Not providing insights or anything of real value.
projektir 9y ago
I think balance will mean different things to different people, so this question is going to be nearly impossible to answer. I also think people have different personalities and happiness gradients. I'm going to use a hazy definition of balance here, meaning that you do not forget your friends, family, health, hygiene, ethics, beliefs, secondary hobbies, leisure. > Nearly all of the great performers I’ve gotten to know — from athletes to artists to computer programmers to entrepreneurs — report a direct line between being happy, fulfilled and at their best and going all-in on something. The vast majority of people are not great performers, so this seems like a poor sample to draw any conclusions from. Combined with survivorship bias, likely this is just finding that the people who are most positioned to reach what this society calls "greatness" tend to be those who are able to hyper-focus on one thing without it draining them. There are often fairly serious consequences to disregarding balance in one's life, but when it comes to the "great", those consequences are often forgotten, forgiven, or written off. But the "greatness" label is not absolute, it's assigned. We could have chosen to value something else. I think the fact that we dropped ethics in favor of "greatness" is a huge, costly mistake. This is not the case for the other 99% of the population. Why does Western philosophy insist so much on this insane focus on the "great"? They're not most people. They're never going to be most people. And, frankly, they're not very important. Why do we want to compel the person to just zero-in on one thing? If you ask me, that sounds incredibly boring. Cue Heinlein's famous quote. As for me, I can observe a distinct increase in day-to-day happiness when things are more balanced for me. When I have a solid schedule and routine, when I eat well, when I exercise regularly, when I keep my area clean, etc., I'm generally much more content with things. If I have to super focus on a given thing for a long time it usually wears me out and winds me up and not in a good way. This doesn't mean that aspects of balance don't need to be sacrificed at times to get something done (after all, extra things require extra resources and sometimes your resources are limited). But I didn't really enjoy such times. But I've never been a thrill seeker, I've never been a hyper-specialist, nor do I have a very obsessive personality over any given topic. This seems a very personal thing, but current society definitely has a preference for the hyper-specialized. I think that's a pity.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Your hazy definition closely matches my definition of mindfulness. As I've aged, I've realized that trying to be happy is a struggle. So, instead, I try to be content - which, curiously, makes me happy. That takes being mindful, for me at least.
corvos 9y ago
Generally a good article but I think the author struggles too much with something that isn't that difficult. If you really enjoy something then won't you naturally pursue it? Of course, you love it. If you have multiple things you love you'll pursue multiple things, dividing your time between them. IF you hate something then the only reason you would give it time is because there's something you don't hate about it. This isn't that difficult, its really just intuitive.
known 9y ago
Achieve self-actualization in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
deanCommie 9y ago
To each is own. I love my friends and my happiest moments are stories of adventures we did together. Yet, I'm ultimately an introvert so after a weekend or week with people I desperately crave consecutive days of solitude. I love my job, but it's tough and there is always more work to do than there is time for. When I'm on a project I like I throw all of myself into it, work too much, and burn myself out. I'm constantly trying to find balance because my default approach is an "object in motion stays in motion".
manmal 9y ago
What author describes likely comes down to individual traits, especially hormone and enzyme status. E.g. if you produce high MAO-A due to genetics, then your dopamine and serotonin status will be chronically low. And this might lead to you being addicted to novelty, quick wins, and generally overly stimulating activities [1]. Gut or microbiome issues can also have unbalancing effects on neurotransmitters. I don't mean to refute the article, it's just not for everyone; and maybe people already do what they gravitate towards anyway. 1: http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869106,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869106,0...
alnitak 9y ago
I had a little moment of hesitation before clicking on the link "Rich Roll" in the article..
sundvor 9y ago
So .. we need a balance between living balanced and unbalanced. That's actually quite a good insight to ponder.
workerthread 9y ago
> Instead, maybe it’s about pursuing your interests fully, but with enough internal self-awareness to regularly evaluate what you’re not pursuing as a result — and make changes if necessary. Living in this manner trumps balance any day. That is exactly how I would describe 'balance'. The article seems to use a different definition, though.
calinet6 9y ago
"Maybe the good life is not about trying to achieve some sort of illusory balance. Instead, maybe it’s about pursuing your interests fully, but with enough internal self-awareness to regularly evaluate what you’re not pursuing as a result — and make changes if necessary. Living in this manner..." ...IS balance. Period.
ctvo 9y ago
This misses the dimension where specific people are your passion in life. For example your significant other and children. In those cases work IS a necessary evil and work life balance is a direct attempt at gaining more time for your passion. I'm not in that boat and gladly lose myself in things, but I understand the perspective.
syveen 9y ago
I do need some unbalances to make sure that I'm a human, not a balance. Passion, flow, abnormal, whatever you name it.

197 points by tim_sw 9y ago

d--b 9y ago

So? We need more balance between a balanced life and an unbalanced one? Seriously though, who is that guy talking to? Does anyone truly believe that having a perfectly balanced life makes one happy? Haven't they made thousands of movies about this? Sorry for the negativity but "live a little" seems a bit of a shallow advice from the New York Times...

boxbag 9y ago

I can relate to what is being discussed in this article. For the last 2 years I've been focusing solely on my startup at the expense of my relationships with family and friends. So far, it's been working alright because we're still quite young and I don't feel like I'm missing out on any significant things in their lives. But now I'm at the point where I don't need to sink 16 hours 7 days a week and I'm really struggling with reevaluating my identity which has been so closely tied with just building shit constantly

csallen 9y ago
I did the same thing in my early 20s and came to regret it. Especially since I know now that if I'd found the right mentors and/or learned the right things, I could've made better decisions and gotten much more accomplished in less time. You live and you learn. The identity thing you mentioned is big, too. We can turn ourselves into machines, but it robs us of our personalities. Like anything else, being good at being social requires practice. You get rusty. It also helps to have interesting things to talk about, and work talk gets boring fast. If that's all you have to talk about, you start to wonder what happened to the rest of you, and so does everyone else.

alansammarone 9y ago

This is a very good point. People tend to look for more "balance" when they are unhappy with whatever their main focus is right now. The obvious example applies: people don't like their day jobs very much, and so they go around advocating more "work-life balance" to compensate for it, because they feel it is a necessary evil. It's not (at least in most cases). If you're not happy with whatever your main focus is, you need to change it, not add more stuff to compensate. (Of course, there are still some things that you should pay attention to apart from your main focus, like your health and family. This is not the point here).

Chiba-City 9y ago
I was lucky to love my job for the outcomes and not just the paychecks. Is there any central pooling of contract work around more important Open Source projects? Here in DC we have interns working for free or cheap on good causes they hope will lead somewhere. I would think many software devs not raising families would take lower steadier rate for work they can talk about and be proud of. Many governments are seeking stable OSS office automation infrastructure. Stability is the goal compared to pyrotechnics. Is that a solved problem yet?
- stephengillie 9y ago
  > Here in DC we have interns working for free or cheap on good causes they hope will lead somewhere. I would think many software devs not raising families would take lower steadier rate for work they can talk about and be proud of. It sounds like they made a bargain[0] with "Phil, the Ruler of Heck and the Prince of Insufficient Light." [0] https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/855574/855574_original.gif https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/855574/8555...
  - teddyh 9y ago
    Link to original: http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02 http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02
_delirium 9y ago
Is it really true that in most cases people can find a day job that isn't a necessary evil? People usually work because they need money to live, and employers usually pay money because they want stuff done that is not interesting or enjoyable enough for anyone to do as a volunteer. Most jobs in developed countries are service jobs, and few of these are things people love to do, they're just things that need doing, and someone is willing to pay for them to be done: working restaurants, inserting IVs in hospitals, caring for elderly, picking up trash, cleaning offices, staffing call centers, answering email on behalf of the CEO, processing insurance claims, driving Ubers, etc. So there is some amount of needing to do something you don't necessarily love for a job, but it's perfectly reasonable for you to also not want this to consume your life 24/7. I mean, if you can achieve the feat of the photo at the top of this article—getting paid to surf—that might be great, but that's not really the norm for jobs.

mrhappyunhappy 9y ago

Interesting how in US I always see articles talking about how to find happiness. Ever since I moved to Japan I haven't heard this theme yet. I am made to wonder if consumption based societies have a bigger issue with being unhappy than those that strive for conservative lives. One one hand the author has a point. I can think back to activities where I was happiest that involved being consumed wholly by that activity. On the other hand, there are moments where I think I'd be better off if I didn't focus so much on that one thing. I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than I'm tired of these articles that seek to define ways to be happy. This really says something about our society or perhaps about the nation. Is there a happiness crisis? I don't see it happening here in Japan but perhaps I'm disallusioned as I have not fully integrated into this society.

Retric 9y ago
Japan seems to have given up the idea of happyness for indirect proxies like a good job etc. US, has gone down a similar path, but has this crazy idea you should be happy and successful. France IMO is closer to the ideal that happyness should be the goal not a side effect.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
No the US is just irrationally obsessed with happiness.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  Decades of advertising created a deep connection between happiness, individualism and consumerism. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Yes. It's mainly that happiness is being used to sell stuff to people (that will "make them happy"). And it's not much better when they are selling them "experiences".
9y ago

Chiba-City 9y ago

I try to live in Skill Sprints that direct focus for a few years. I pick things that combine history, books, places and tool mastery like photography, music training, cooking, core muscle exercises or even Buddhist Pali suttas and walking meditation. You have to create your series of time boxed challenges. With a daily drumbeat of global finance news and HN it keeps me out of trouble. Our notational computer process logic and memory access hierarchies turn out to describe almost everything worthwhile. [ed. Did not want to skip music training.]

goldfeld 9y ago
Fitter, happier, more productive.

0xcde4c3db 9y ago

One way to look at it is that balance is fundamentally about stability, not neutrality. Maybe your fulcrum isn't at the center of all possible aspects of your life, and maybe that's not something that needs to be fixed.

RyanRies 9y ago

You do have the strongest experiences and form the strongest memories (both good and bad) when you are at your most unbalanced. But it's also unsustainable to stay unbalanced for too long.

stephengillie 9y ago

Instead of a work-life balance, consider a state-of-flow/state-of-social balance. Spend chunks of time heads-down in solo project; and spend chunks of time between tech talk, elevator pitches, and tangential discussion. Instead of striving for an eudaimonistic balance between the two, let the balance freely oscillate between those extremes as feels natural for you.

yters 9y ago

I've wondered when people tell me to be more balanced if it is for my good or because people feel uncomfortable when someone is working very hard on something. I do know I've had better success in things with single minded focus, but when more balanced others find me more interesting. Perhaps I need to balance my periods of balance and being focused.

landon32 9y ago
I think a lot of people are stressed or sad when they are just going 100% on something difficult. They are probably just looking out for you. When my friends get crazy busy for a long time on something I tell them to take little breaks and balance it out because I know they don't feel good. For some people though, working all the time doesn't feel bad. That could be the case for you.
- jtmarmon 9y ago
  The thing that sucks about going 100% on something difficult isn't the thing being difficult, it's when you fail relentless for an extended period of time that makes you burn out.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    I've taken a big step back from start up culture. I don't work more than I have to, I travel more, I meet interesting people. The funny part is now I feel more energized and connected with what people really need. Very little of it has to do with apps or algorithms. My feeling when being in startup mode was essentially the sunk cost fallacy. I've already put this much work in, success must be around the corner. But I look at some of my peers with similar mentalities and you can't help but feel they're too focused on the day to day without realizing the product and demand is garbage. Life is short, enjoy it.
coldtea 9y ago
>I do know I've had better success in things with single minded focus You might have had better success "in things", but did you also had better success in relationships, family and personal health? Because that's part of the balance thing.

elgenie 9y ago

An undiversified portfolio maximizes possible upside … and possible downside. If you have a rational level of risk aversion, that should persuade you to strive for balance and a more certain return. The fact that in this case the portfolio is of "life elements" rather than "shares of companies" shouldn't change the conclusion.

landon32 9y ago
I disagree- when doing something in life you can tell very quickly how it makes you feel, but when investing in a company it can be difficult to see how the company will do.

cortesoft 9y ago

I think the idea is to be balanced across a larger time frame, not balanced at every moment. Sometimes, you might be more into one thing or another, but you have balance across a decade or some other time scale.

haffla 9y ago
Exactly, you can have these extreme moments in your life and still be balanced. The behavior the author is advocating is reactionary.. overly negative, relax please!

branchless 9y ago

> “the path to fulfillment in life, to emotional satisfaction, is to find what _you_ really excites you and channel your all into it.” That reminds me - what happened with the proofreader strike again? This article is way out of touch. We know what we want, but we cannot have it because we are in a system that forces us to work. And we cannot break out of that system because of land costs. We want to go cycling. To spend time with our kids. To sit on our ass if we so choose. To help others. To stroll. But we gotta pay the rent. I guess this guy needs to spend a bit more time at the office away from his family to "achieve excellence" in basic proofreading. I wouldn't normally be so harsh but who is this guy to tell us what life should be like when he seems so out of touch.

eighthnate 9y ago
> This article is way out of touch. It is and it isn't. People have to write articles to make money. Most articles just say things to say them because the journalists/authors have to earn their pay checks. > We know what we want, but we cannot have it because we are in a system that forces us to work. "Let them eat cake"... Exactly. We all want shelter, food, necessity and money to survive. > who is this guy to tell us what life should be like when he seems so out of touch. He's just some guy who is trying to get you to click and read his articles so that he can make money. Just like the evangelical preachers or the self-help gurus. They are all in the business of making money. Not providing insights or anything of real value.

projektir 9y ago

I think balance will mean different things to different people, so this question is going to be nearly impossible to answer. I also think people have different personalities and happiness gradients. I'm going to use a hazy definition of balance here, meaning that you do not forget your friends, family, health, hygiene, ethics, beliefs, secondary hobbies, leisure. > Nearly all of the great performers I’ve gotten to know — from athletes to artists to computer programmers to entrepreneurs — report a direct line between being happy, fulfilled and at their best and going all-in on something. The vast majority of people are not great performers, so this seems like a poor sample to draw any conclusions from. Combined with survivorship bias, likely this is just finding that the people who are most positioned to reach what this society calls "greatness" tend to be those who are able to hyper-focus on one thing without it draining them. There are often fairly serious consequences to disregarding balance in one's life, but when it comes to the "great", those consequences are often forgotten, forgiven, or written off. But the "greatness" label is not absolute, it's assigned. We could have chosen to value something else. I think the fact that we dropped ethics in favor of "greatness" is a huge, costly mistake. This is not the case for the other 99% of the population. Why does Western philosophy insist so much on this insane focus on the "great"? They're not most people. They're never going to be most people. And, frankly, they're not very important. Why do we want to compel the person to just zero-in on one thing? If you ask me, that sounds incredibly boring. Cue Heinlein's famous quote. As for me, I can observe a distinct increase in day-to-day happiness when things are more balanced for me. When I have a solid schedule and routine, when I eat well, when I exercise regularly, when I keep my area clean, etc., I'm generally much more content with things. If I have to super focus on a given thing for a long time it usually wears me out and winds me up and not in a good way. This doesn't mean that aspects of balance don't need to be sacrificed at times to get something done (after all, extra things require extra resources and sometimes your resources are limited). But I didn't really enjoy such times. But I've never been a thrill seeker, I've never been a hyper-specialist, nor do I have a very obsessive personality over any given topic. This seems a very personal thing, but current society definitely has a preference for the hyper-specialized. I think that's a pity.

KGIII 9y ago
Your hazy definition closely matches my definition of mindfulness. As I've aged, I've realized that trying to be happy is a struggle. So, instead, I try to be content - which, curiously, makes me happy. That takes being mindful, for me at least.

corvos 9y ago

Generally a good article but I think the author struggles too much with something that isn't that difficult. If you really enjoy something then won't you naturally pursue it? Of course, you love it. If you have multiple things you love you'll pursue multiple things, dividing your time between them. IF you hate something then the only reason you would give it time is because there's something you don't hate about it. This isn't that difficult, its really just intuitive.

known 9y ago

Achieve self-actualization in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

deanCommie 9y ago

To each is own. I love my friends and my happiest moments are stories of adventures we did together. Yet, I'm ultimately an introvert so after a weekend or week with people I desperately crave consecutive days of solitude. I love my job, but it's tough and there is always more work to do than there is time for. When I'm on a project I like I throw all of myself into it, work too much, and burn myself out. I'm constantly trying to find balance because my default approach is an "object in motion stays in motion".

manmal 9y ago

What author describes likely comes down to individual traits, especially hormone and enzyme status. E.g. if you produce high MAO-A due to genetics, then your dopamine and serotonin status will be chronically low. And this might lead to you being addicted to novelty, quick wins, and generally overly stimulating activities [1]. Gut or microbiome issues can also have unbalancing effects on neurotransmitters. I don't mean to refute the article, it's just not for everyone; and maybe people already do what they gravitate towards anyway. 1: http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869106,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869106,0...

alnitak 9y ago

I had a little moment of hesitation before clicking on the link "Rich Roll" in the article..

sundvor 9y ago

So .. we need a balance between living balanced and unbalanced. That's actually quite a good insight to ponder.

workerthread 9y ago

> Instead, maybe it’s about pursuing your interests fully, but with enough internal self-awareness to regularly evaluate what you’re not pursuing as a result — and make changes if necessary. Living in this manner trumps balance any day. That is exactly how I would describe 'balance'. The article seems to use a different definition, though.

calinet6 9y ago

"Maybe the good life is not about trying to achieve some sort of illusory balance. Instead, maybe it’s about pursuing your interests fully, but with enough internal self-awareness to regularly evaluate what you’re not pursuing as a result — and make changes if necessary. Living in this manner..." ...IS balance. Period.

ctvo 9y ago

This misses the dimension where specific people are your passion in life. For example your significant other and children. In those cases work IS a necessary evil and work life balance is a direct attempt at gaining more time for your passion. I'm not in that boat and gladly lose myself in things, but I understand the perspective.

syveen 9y ago

I do need some unbalances to make sure that I'm a human, not a balance. Passion, flow, abnormal, whatever you name it.