Work / Play / Rest balance

[OliNorwell]

a) To work hard and acheive all your documented goals, but feel exhausted and numb at the same time....

b) Or to be as lazy and pleasured as possible, but realise that you're not really achieving anything.....

My question was simply how do you find the balance between a) and getting lots of 'success', and b) and feeling very happy and relaxed...

[Jennihul]

Sheesh, duder...your life is my nightmare.

Everything I do is geared toward pleasure. Happiness. If I work too much I get sad. If I don't have enough alone time/relaxation time, I get sad.

So I won't own my own island someday. Big whoop. At least I won't die debating whether I enjoyed my life or not.

Jennifer

[justfiverules]

OliNorwell,

In my experience so far, there's nothing wrong at all with goals and achievement as long as it doesn't come at the cost of "peace of mind". That's of course a subjective and course correcting judgment on my part.

I can tell you one thing. Starting a family does has changed the nature and purpose of my goals. It's generally been more about sharing and less about "me".

If you haven't yet read "Tuesdays With Morrie", I would highly recommend it - especially the part where Morrie talks about the little bird on the shoulder. "Is it today, little bird, is it today?"

[WealthyAndContent]

The age old question.

When one is taking away from the other, then it's time for a shift.
You only get one (natural) life and you also need to understand who you will be calling for on your death bed.
Hint: It will not be all your boss and co-workers.

[Lauxa]

Seems kind of self-regulating.

If you work too hard, eventually you are exhausted, used up, all you want is a rest. Maybe you keep pushing, and then you get sick and are forced to rest. If you work at something you hate, it seems to take much more energy and require more frequent rest than working at something you enjoy.

If you rest all the time, you feel restless, pent up, unfulfilled. After a while you realize that you will not feel better until you DO SOMETHING. You jump back into the fray, batteries recharged.

To me, the trick is to find happiness by not wishing to be resting while it is work time and not feeling guilty during rest time.

[SonoranBob]

Originally Posted by Jennihul

Sheesh, duder...your life is my nightmare.

Everything I do is geared toward pleasure. Happiness. If I work too much I get sad. If I don't have enough alone time/relaxation time, I get sad.

So I won't own my own island someday. Big whoop. At least I won't die debating whether I enjoyed my life or not.

Jennifer

Jennifer,

I agree. Pleasure: good. Pain: bad. Why fight this simple truth?

On their death bed, no one ever laments that they didn't spend more time at work, attend more board meetings, keep the lawn more perfect, or get a better rate of return on their investments. At least, not anyone I'd want to know!

--Bob

[Jennihul]

No fair editing your original post. It makes our stuff look out of context.

Jennifer

[zdomerr]

Originally Posted by OliNorwell

a)My question was simply how do you find the balance between a) and getting lots of 'success', and b) and feeling very happy and relaxed...

Well, a) will getting lots of 'success' make you happy? or b) will it not?

The key to being happy is being happy now, not when you get tons of success! Come on. Is it that hard to realize that you can be happy now, right now, right this instant. Is it that hard to realize you don't need to be successful and have lots of money and have a huge house and a big car to be happy.

Just be happy. Its really simple. Smile. Laugh for no reason at all. Just laugh.

[Ninja]

Originally Posted by WealthyAndContent

The age old question.

When one is taking away from the other, then it's time for a shift.
You only get one (natural) life and you also need to understand who you will be calling for on your death bed.
Hint: It will not be all your boss and co-workers.

Unless said boss/co-worked is the sexiest person you've ever laid eyes on. Hey, if I'm going to die, I at least want a nice view!

Anyway, ik think a and b are related. If you really love something, wouldn't you want to become succesful in it? It's like a great videogame: yes, the manual and box both look cool enough to ogle for hours, but sooner or later you will want to pop in that disk and get some action!

I'd like to compare this with my own passion for writing. I used to be content with just writing for myself, but as my passion grew, it just wasn't good enough anymore. I needed to use that creative energy for something else, something bigger. I needed to challenge myself.

Now I'm writing a book and my goal is to get it published. I combined a and b