The Life Balancing Act
Can We Have It All?
I frequently think of the life-balancing act, also known as the Four Burners Theory. Take a grid. Place your hobbies in one corner, your career in another, friends in the third, and finally your family in the final corner of the grid. Hobbies can also be replaced with personal health, which is an obvious necessity to pursue in life. For today, I’ll include hobbies instead of health, because health, in my opinion, is the most important thing of all. If you take a negative health turn, suddenly, a career, your hobbies, and even friends and family will naturally receive less energy. Health exists above the grid, on its own tier of importance.
Back to the grid, it’s said you can pursue two to a strong level of commitment or three on a median level of commitment, but never all four. No matter how hard you try, you will always be lagging behind at least one. Which corners of the life balancing act grid are falling to the wayside for you?
As I sat pondering the grid a few weeks ago, I questioned: Is there a way we can achieve all four? We can’t create time out of thin air, and so we’d have to somehow fit all four in the time that we have. But the whole reason the grid exists is to reinforce how we can fulfil two sections of the grid to a strong level, or three adequately, but never four.
The only way I concluded we could fill all four is if we combine them.
Do you work with your friends in a job that satisfies you?
Do you work on your hobbies, treating them like a business, hoping that one day it could be a career? Many of us on Substack will have this at least in the back of our minds, and for many it will sit further forward, in the forefront of our hopes and dreams.
I guarantee, that if we try this balancing act to pursue all four aspects of the grid, others will suffer. If we couple our friends and work, we could work, and then head out, socialising with our same friends. But the family portion will likely suffer from this. If we pursue our hobbies, hoping to turn them into a career, as we strive to reach the “career” stage, we could become disillusioned towards our hobbies as all the fun is removed for us once we begin this commitment. Also, if we hope to turn hobbies into careers, it can be a time-consuming pursuit. Friends and family relationships could suffer in this scenario also.
The one key conclusion is everything has trade-offs. In the grid of life balancing, trade-offs are baked into the contents of the life pie. We can’t have it all, or the structure and stability of your pie fall apart. And if we spend all our time rushing to cram every ingredient under the sun into our overflowing pie, and then we rush to eat it, are we really enjoying the most important moments? The present moments.
We could outsource some aspects of the grid, but does this maintain meaning in our lives? We could utilise different versions of ourselves for different times. Perhaps in the summer, we work less and spend more time with our friends and family. In winter, we cosy down and pursue career growth and our hobbies. But in our minds, there will be a strategy we prefer. Deep down, we’ll always be seeking this.
The only way to happily pursue all four corners of the grid is to accept that we can’t.
So, which section of the grid brings you the most satisfaction in life? Which sections are the most necessary? Is this idea of necessity and satisfaction different for us all?
Much research has explored human connection as a pillar of sustained happiness throughout a long life, and unfortunately, we have to pay the bills somehow. So work, and at least one of friends or family are necessary for most grids. We could do these two to a high level of success. But where do hobbies then fall? What of the projects, sitting dormant in the back of our minds? The idea that “I’ll start that one day”, and the one day never arrives.
If we say enough is enough, that life is too short to not pursue that grand idea, what changes? Do other aspects of the grid suffer as a result? Inevitably. Does our happiness and satisfaction in life grow? More on the psychology of projects next week.
Sources
· https://jamesclear.com/four-burners-theory
Fantastic post Dylan. Balance is the key to holding the different aspects of life together. Tip that balance and you have one or even two of those 4 grids suffer. The journey of life is to learn to find that balance, and accept the fact that we can never truly perfect it, as you've rightly said.
This is super insightful dylan - I love the 4 corners analogy. It reminds me a lot of Oliver Burkeman's 3 plates - you can only hold "3 plates" of things in your life at any one time... so sometimes you have to put some plates down for a while. Unless as you say, you can have the good fortune to combine them!