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

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.