Many people say they are looking for balance in their lives. Usually they mean work/life balance. I don’t believe this is possible – instead I follow the 150% rule.
Lately I’ve been thinking about balance in my personal life. I still don’t think I have it. Nor do I want it. I prefer to focus my mind and efforts on what is most important to me. The less important things, I let fall by the wayside.
But even in the extreme way that I live, I do seek a type of balance. I try to balance the opposing or complementary forces in my daily life. It’s my own personal Yin and Yang.
- Volume of Food is balanced against Activity Level
- Sleep Time is balanced against Energy Level & Health
- Downtime is balanced against Stress
- Work is balanced against Pleasure
- Routine is balanced against Spontaneity
- Spending is balanced against Income
- Savings is balanced against Goals
- Physical Strength is balanced against Flexibility
- Solitude is balanced against Socializing
I haven’t always done this. For most of my life, I over-concentrated on one side of these equations. There were both good and bad results from this.
For example, over-concentrating on work and savings enabled me to retire early. Sadly, the same thing prevented me from enjoying the money with my wife as much as I should have.
Over-concentrating on strength and weight lifting for 30 years kept me in good shape compared to most people. But not incorporating yoga, flexibility and mobility until the last 10 years left me susceptible to injury and pain.
I frequently sacrificed sleep when I needed more time for work, travel, caring for my wife and exercise. Now that I always get sufficient sleep, I realize how much that hampered my ability to function.
I am far from perfect in this effort to balance the Yin and Yang of my life. A current example is putting on 10 lbs of fat in the past few months. It was 100% due to eating too much food vs. the volume of activity I do.
Fortunately, I recognized this and took action. I suspect I’ll be able to drop this extra weight over the course of a few weeks.
As for the rest, mainting balance is not a continual struggle, but it is a continual effort.