71–80 of 115 posts
Somewhat less pretentiously, I wonder about contrasting life and work, because it's not unusual to have a pretty active social life at work. The absence of any social stimulation there would at least make me unhappy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? No. A balanced life means you split your life among all different areas of life. That's what that phrase means. Elon Musk has rejected the idea that work/life balance is necessary and that's just fine . That's how he feels happiest. It seems to be working pretty damn well for him. I'm not saying there's any kind of standard set of rules, I'm saying that if you reject the dogma of balance then say so, don't try…
If the goal is to be happy and if some people find greater happiness doing 'work' while others find greater happiness devoting time to 'life', then surely there will be some people who will split their time accordingly. Maybe it's not technically 'balance', but do you really think when someone says 'work-life balance' that they mean 50-50 split between work and life? When I hear it used it usually means 'spend less t…
We both (along with hippo33) agree that everyone does not need to lead a balanced life. There are other valid choices like a life of dedication to a specific cause or pursuit. Or anywhere in between that makes you happy.
We disagree on whether you should use the word balance when you "technically" mean the exact opposite. That's poor communication in my opinion.
Her high school life sounds sad. If she really had a fulfilling social life in high school she wouldn't feel the need to tell us all how great it was that she didn't go to parties. It reminds me of people who are constantly broadcasting to everyone how happy they are. Chances are, they're not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. Balance has a reasonably well defined meaning. You can argue that balance isn't necessary for everyone or that the "balanced life" dogma is wrong. That's an interesting conversation. Better than trying to redefine balanced to mean "either balanced or the opposite, whatever you feel like", that seems rather silly.
What you need to make your life feel balanced is different from your peers. If you need to take more time off, then do it. But if you only need 1 week of vacation like Elon Musk, then that's his balance. That's the point -- let's not create one standard set of rules for what balance is because people operate differently.
You mean "fulfilling". Not balanced, balanced means something else. You seem to think I'm trying to tell people how to live when I am actually trying to tell you that you are using the wrong word to express your idea.
I agree with your point wholeheartedly by the way, I was just confused by your use of the word balanced to mean fulfilled.
I agree that we shouldn't be looking at it in terms of hours, but I don't know if it can be measured in terms of happiness (as the author seems to be indicating) either. What are your goals? What is it going to take for you to achieve those goals? Will you be happy working towards those goals? Is the misery that you're going to have to endure to achieve those goals worth it? Can you sustain that level of misery and s…
Of course, many jobs actually want brute-force code versus library-laden, clever hacks. This is why I struggled to become a researcher again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't. But the error is significantly different. English is changing and adverbs are disappearing. "Your" and the contraction "You're" are significantly different grammatically but sound the same when pronounced.
The grammatical error is not the contraction. "You're thinking about work-life balance all wrong" can be extended to "You are thinking about work-life balance all wrong" The incorrect part is the "all wrong." It should be "You're thinking about work-life balance incorrectly."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Balance is what YOU as an individual need to be balanced. You are projecting your opinion on everyone else that you need to do other things to be happier. That is what makes YOU happy. So go do it! But, it doesn't mean that everyone will be happier doing that. The point of this post is that everyone needs balance and needs to do what they think will make them feel balanced. And rather than adhering to dogma of others…
In case people still don't get it, it's your life that you balance. No one but you can tell you what that means.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> redefine what it means because people are dogmatic about "balance = good, not balanced = bad" You don't seem to understand that this is how language drift works. When "people are dogmatic" about how certain words are used, those connotations leak into the definition itself.
People are dogmatic about a variety of activities being the best way to live. I'm not convinced anyone but two people here feel that "balance" is now used to also mean single minded focus.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or confirmation bias / projecting. "I didn't have a happy high school years so how can she?"
That's certainly possible. But how do you know? It could also be your own projecting of the same thing.
I'm projecting projecting high school sucking?
Au contraire - That would require me to doubt everyone making claims that high school was awesome, which I am not doing.