The Work/Life Balance Fallacy

When we were children, time didn’t occur to us. All our activities fit perfectly into the day. Unless the sun was going to bed, our time seemed endless, wistfully passing by.

Our parents dealt with our schedules, moving and shifting around hockey practices with dentist appointments. Our lives were handled in their responsible care and we were blissful.

Soon after, we matured into self-sustaining adults with our own work schedules and responsibilities. We began to focus on time; trying to fit all the minutiae tightly in.

Then, we became obsessed with time. We became obsessed with balance. It seems that most of us endlessly sought a balanced life.

However, the ‘balanced life’ does not exist.

One of life’s biggest lies is the notion of a balanced life. Nothing ever achieves absolute balance. Nothing.

Between professional and personal life, striving for that perfect balance is most peoples’ mislead goal that they find attainable without ever stopping to truly consider it.

This is tough to believe mainly because one of the most frequent mantras for what is missing in most lives is, ‘I need more balance.’ We hear about balance so much that we automatically assume it’s exactly what we should seek.

It’s not.

We should be seeking purpose, significance, and happiness, the qualities that persist in a successful life.

Seek those important qualities and you will more than likely live a life out of balance, crisscrossing an invisible middle line as you pursue those qualities.

Think of balance as the middle line, and out of balance when we’re away from it. Get too far and we’re now living in the extremes.

The persistent problem with the middle is that it prevents us from making extraordinary time commitments to anything. Stay here too long and our lives will grow stale and ordinary.

Stray away from the middle and we could get reckless, marginally living a terribly hard life, devoid of relationships, fond memories and love.

Knowing when to pursue the middle and the extremes is true knowledge. Results are achieved with perfect negotiation with your time.

The reason we should never pursue absolute balance is because the magic never happens in the middle.

Magic happens at the extremes.

The extremes are where we are truly tested in will and guts. Our strengths are galvanized towards a lifelong dream. We naturally understand that success lies at the outer edges, but we don’t know how to manage our lives when we’re out venturing.

When we work too long, our personal life suffers. We unfairly blame work when we say, ‘I have no life.’ Even when work doesn’t pose a threat, our personal lives can be filled with endless ‘have-tos’ that we, once again, reach the same conclusion, ‘I have no life.’

When we get bombarded by both sides – professional and personal – we face an imminent breakdown and once again proclaim, ‘I have no life.’

Time waits for no one.

If we stray too far to the extremes, chasing our professional lives, we forget to cherish the middle, the simple.

Sometimes our work schedules become overwhelming, but our belief is that if we work hard now, we can enjoy the fruits of labor later.

Push something to an extreme and postponement can become permanent.

We seem to believe that we can make up for lost time.

But do we really think that we can get back a child’s birthday or bedtime story? Is a party for a five-year old with imaginary friends the same as a dinner with a teenager with high-school friends?

In Click, Adam Sandler has an epiphany before death where he says, ‘family first.’ Realizing all the time he spent at work instead of with his family, gave him his biggest regret.

He couldn’t make up for lost time. He couldn’t find balance.

Time on one thing means time away from another. This makes balance impossible.

Finding the right amount is essential to our personal and professional lives. Through careful deliberation of our activities, we can slowly understand where our time is best spent.

We have to spend our time on what matters most to us, instead of scrambling with minutiae. We have to accept the fact that not everything can get done in our days, weeks, months, years, and lives.

We need to realize where our true passions and priorities lie in life. We need to separate all the important activities from the things we think are important.

Professional and personal success are measured equally. If we do not treat bodies with respect, our families and friends with respect, we suffer immeasurable in the latter.

If we do not achieve professional success, we feel defeated and depressed, bringing those feelings into our personal lives.

We must crisscross the invisible line, while simultaneously chasing purpose, significance, and happiness.

We must spend a little extra time sharing memories with our families and friends and being mindful of ourselves – our bodies and minds.

We must also focus on our professional goals by working our hardest – but not longest – and giving our entire being in that singular moment.

Balance cannot be achieved.

The art of counter-balancing is a more realistic goal. With everything that we do in our professional life, equal time must be spent in our personal lives, and vice versa.

When I die, I want to have the shortest list of regrets possible. With that in mind, making sure to be mindful of my body, treasuring my relationships and chasing professional success are goals, which are strived for equally.

Until next time, my beautiful readers,

Be bold, be free, and love on.

Symbol of scales is made of stones on the cliff

What Video Games Taught Me That School Didn’t

I never enjoyed school.

I felt that most of what I was being taught was useless, I couldn’t pay attention and I didn’t preform very well.

In middle school I was so distracted that the teacher decided to have a meeting with my mother. She came up with the idea of giving me some play-doh that I could play with, along with a tape recorder to record the lessons so that I wouldn’t distract the other kids.

But there was something that could keep my attention.

Video Games

I loved the game Halo 2. It was a futuristic war game that involved team work, skill, strategy and many other aspects. I would login online every day to play this game for hours.

I think I missed almost all of grade 9 because of this game.
But, I learned things that I didn’t learn in school.

Only Passion Leads To Motivation

Doctors told me I had A.D.D., teachers said that I couldn’t learn and my mom told me that I never listened.

So why was it that I focused so intently when I played this game.
Because I was Passionate.

I hated school, so I didn’t try. I loved video games, so I put my heart into it.

This taught me at a young age that you had better pursue things you feel passionately about, or you will never reach any level of mastery.

Every day when I woke up I wanted to keep playing, and keep getting better. These days I wake up and the only thing I can think about is helping people conquer their obstacles.

I could have easily given in to pressure and gone to university. Maybe I would have even found a good job and made good money.
But I wouldn’t reach my full potential if I didn’t feel the passion.

Learn From The Best, Play Out Of Your League

The reason I became so good at this game was because I always searched for the best players I could find and tried to learn from them.

If someone beat me in a game, I didn’t complain or make excuses. I messaged that person and asked them to play me again and criticize my weaknesses.

If you surround yourself with people who are not as talented as you, it might boost your ego, but it won’t help you reach your potential.

When the people around you are on another level compared to you, your skills and knowledge will skyrocket.

Check your ego at the door and play with the best.

Work Ethic Beats Talent

I had a friend in this game, his name was Dustin.

I was always better than him, but he had determination that would impress Olympic athletes.

We would play games with each other one-on-one and I would win every time, but he never complained and never wanted to stop practicing.

One day his school had a lock down drill and he was stuck in class for hours with nothing to do. So what did he decide to spend this extra time on?

He got out a pen and paper, and started plotting. He thought back to all of our games, looking for commonalities and patterns to exploit. He spent literally three hours sketching and contemplating.

The next day we loaded up a game of one-on-one as always, but this time he won, again and again.

I was naturally talented, but he put in more effort so he beat me.

Whenever I worry about my abilities—seeing all of these people who are so much more talented than I am—I think of this story. It reminds that no matter how much talent I have, it’s the effort that counts.

I’m not trying to say that school isn’t important, or that it doesn’t teach you anything, or even that video games will teach you more.

I believe that we can learn lessons from every experience. Video games taught me teamwork, patience, work ethic, humility and much more.

School wasn’t the right environment for me to learn, so maybe it’s good that the teacher gave me play-doh and separated me.

I was learning on my own time anyway.
*pew pew, bang bang bang, BOOM*

Becoming A Fountain Of Ideas

I’ve been going to the gym for about three years now.
Wait, that’s a half truth

The first two years down my muscle building journey I was inconsistent. I would work out with a strict regimen for three months, then I would fall off track and miss weeks at a time. I repeated that cycle over and over again without seeing the results I really wanted to.

Now that I have been going to the gym consistently for just over a year I have seen results that I never imagined possible. I still have a long way to go, but now I see constant improvement. I can lift more, run more, and my body looks completely different.

Last year I decided that I wanted to become a never ending fountain of ideas. I wanted to have a hundred ideas to overcome any obstacle that came my way.

Heck, I wanted to be able to spout off ideas to solve the problems of everyone around me. And I had learned my lesson from the gym.
Consistently exercise a skill, and it grows.

So I created my idea exercise regimen and I’ll share it with you now.

Write at least 10 ideas every day.

They don’t have to be good!

I say that first because every time I mention this to someone they always say “How on god’s green earth could you come up with ten ideas in a day?”

When I tell them that it usually takes me about 12-15 minutes they look at me like I’m some sort of super human.

But then I tell them some of the ideas I’ve come up with and their face changes.

Don’t worry if your ideas are bad. In the first six months of going to the gym you are going to be weak compared to everyone around you. Your muscles haven’t developed yet. It’s the same with your idea muscle.

The point is to consciously make your brain struggle every single day. If you want to become a never ending source of ideas, especially good ideas, it’s going to take time.

One of my ideas recently was a themed restaurant where the waitresses/waiters get paid really well, and they decide how much they tip the customers.

Is the idea interesting?
Sure.

Is it good?
Nope.

Always be on the search for problems.

This is something that you need to train yourself to be vigilant in. Every time you hear someone complain about something, think of ways to fix it.
Even if they’re bad ideas; even if you’ll never follow through.

You need to be able to apply your idea skills to real world situations and just like anything else, that takes practice.

If you hear someone complain— or notice something that doesn’t seem to work correctly—just write it down and make it the subject of your next 10 ideas.

After enough practice with this, ensuring that you do your 10 ideas every day, you will be well on your way to become a fountain of ideas.

Combine your ideas.

This is a crucial skill to learn if you ever want to create something new.

Combining to totally different ideas, or objects, will provide weird and sometimes very amazing results. I learned this concept from a book called ‘Creative Thinkering.’

A lot of history’s greatest ideas have happened this way, whether the person has realized it or not.

The natural way this happens is you think about something for a long time, then when you stop focusing on it and you mind wanders to something else, that other focus causes a eureka moment.

A man named Christopher Sholes was watching a piano recital when he noted that each key of the piano produces one specific note. He thought, why not create machine that writes in the same manner, with each key creating a specific letter.

Through the combination of playing a piano and writing, the first type writer was born.

I believe that you can improve any skill with practice, and you ability to create quality ideas on a whim is no exception.

If you follow these tips consistently, you will see results.

First you will be able to come up with ideas with ease, whether they are good or bad. Then you will start to come up with quality ideas, or novel ideas more and more often. Then you will start to come up with truly innovative ideas and you will naturally have the motivation to start executing them.

Just like my body has grown stronger from training at the gym, my creativity has improved drastically with this idea training.

Don’t wait for some amazing idea to hit you, start training your creativity and light your own light bulb.

Pour Out Your Soul, Fill The Void

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been depressed in the past. I’ve looked in the mirror without being able to understand the person looking back at me.

What do you want? What makes you happy? Why do you feel this void inside regardless of how things appear on the outside?

During these slumps I spent most of my time sleeping, eating out of boredom, devouring whole seasons of shows and consuming whatever I could to satisfy the feeling, or lack there of, inside me.
I felt unfulfilled and useless.

I still feel this way sometimes but I’ve learned how to push through it with one simple question that I ask myself every morning.

Do I want to be a consumer, or a producer?

Logically, if you feel an emptiness inside you, you are missing something that will make you feel complete again. I learned that this isn’t the case.

Instead of taking things in I started to pour everything out of myself. I poured out my heart, my emotions, my soul into my writing. It made me feel something that I hadn’t felt in a long time…

Producing pride.

Downward spirals and never ending consumption will lead to guilt. It’s a cycle. You’re empty so you try to distract or satisfy yourself with movies, video games or food but it doesn’t change anything and the more you consume, the more guilty and empty you feel.

Pouring out what you have left in you into something, anything, can make you proud again. You have something to look forward to instead of just passing the time.

It doesn’t have to be art.

You can start a business, volunteer to help build homes for people or even just create deeper connections with the people around you. As long as you are producing something that allows you to look forward and feel like you are useful.

Think of anything you can put into the world today and start on it. Happiness is more about where you are going than where you are now.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to take things in.

You just have to find a balance. Someone who spends all day being creative and working is bound to burn out eventually. That can be just as bad.

I feel that most people are unbalanced right now. As a society we have lost a lot of creativity and self-esteem. We think that we don’t have anything of value to add to the world, but imagine if people tried to live up to their full potential.

Imagine if they stopped trying to fill the void with material possessions, or distract themselves from it with movies, games and Facebook.

Writing in this blog and creating deeper connections with the people around me has helped me so much. I feel like I have something to offer the world again and although I go into slumps sometimes, I can pull myself out much quicker.

Maybe the void is meant to push you forward. I don’t know if I will ever be completely happy, but if I was, would I continue to push on?

I’ll probably never have to find out because the void is a part of me, and for now, I’ll pour out my soul from it.

With love,
Steven Farquharson, 2HelpfulGuys

How To Push Through Obstacles

When I moved out of my parents house this year, it was a scary process. My end goal was to live on my own and start to manage my own life, but every step of the way I faced obstacles I didn’t anticipate.

It had to be in our budget, it had to allow pets and it had to be close enough to all three of our work places.

After painstaking efforts to find somewhere that met all the criteria we had to gather all of our information and convince the landlords that we were the best tenants.

Finally we got the place and moved in, I thought it was all sunshine from there.

But boy was I wrong.

We had trouble getting the internet working, paying bills for the first time, figuring out groceries and a hundred other obstacles. To this day at least one house related obstacle pops up per week.

Right now, here at 2HelpfulGuys, we are in the middle of writing a book. I can already imagine the hundreds of hurdles that we are going to have to conquer.

Nothing you do will ever come without an obstacle or two so here are my tips to help you push through them and accomplish your goals.

Obstacles are a part of life.

The first thing that will help you push through these pesky obstacles is realizing that obstacles are unavoidable.

They are going to pop up, you can’t stop it. Even if you anticipate as many obstacles as you can, you are still going to run into a few nasty surprises along the way.

For your own sanity, it’s best that you become friends with obstacles.

Use obstacles to help you improve.

By definition an obstacle will help you improve and grow. If you didn’t need to grow to get past the obstacle, then it wouldn’t be an obstacle. It would just be another walk in the park.

When you realize that every obstacle matures your abilities and your drive, you will begin to become excited to face them.

Relish the opportunity to conquer something. It will only lead to more victories.

Break down your obstacles.

When you first encounter an obstacle it is almost always daunting. When you see a mountain from far away you think to yourself “It must be impossible to climb to the top! Look how high it is!”

But when you get closer you start to see the individual paths you can hike. You see it broken down into details that are easier to conquer one by one.

Do this with every obstacle you face. Break it down into small bite size pieces and start chewing.

Never give up.

Some people say Edison tried up to ten thousand different prototypes for the light bulb. Even though the first nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine didn’t work, he refuse to say that he ever failed.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
-Thomas Edison

This is the way you need to think. Every time you try something that doesn’t work you are getting closer to finding what does work.

I’ve learned that nothing you try will ever work the first time. Or maybe you’re lucky and you can get a hole in one.
I never can.

Learning to be okay with being wrong is the most important skill you will ever gain.

Keep being wrong until you find what is right. Just make sure you don’t give up.

As always, I’ll see you next Friday.

With Love,
Steven Farquharson, 2HelpfulGuys