What’s wrong with having a traditional “work-life balance”?

1) Work perceived as bad. If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t have the same energy to truly enjoy other things. Which will affect your relationships outside of work.

2) What’s the purpose of work-life balance? Happiness.

3) Examples of people who got depressed due to “work-life balance”: People who see work as something that they need to do, rather than get to do. People who do very unfulfilling things in their spare time and think that it’s a break because it’s indulgent.

4) Did humans always have a work-life balance? Yes, for the most part. Play your role then come back to support your family, usually that’s why you worked anyway, for the collective both ways. A balance of supporting others through your role, and supporting your family including yourself, rather than doing less work and increasing relaxation time. So work-life balance starts with whether you gain satisfaction from providing for yourself or for others. Secondly, it’s about what those gains are. Today, the who is usually individual, and the “gains” are things that are artificially pleasing. The problem with that, is that artificial pleasure isn’t as fulfilling or beneficial for the overall wellbeing of the individual, otherwise it wouldn’t need to be artificially constructed.

So we’ll cover a basic action step for you to take regarding that, in a bit.

But first, this:

It’s hard for me to what’s considered “work” and “play” because people have had different experiences with gains, and with who they’ve wanted to provide the gains for.

In anywhere that isn’t the West, gains are typically for the collective, and therefore end up being less artificial as well.

5) Different types of work-life balance? Individual and collective work-life balance. Individual is attaining gain for yourself. Collective is attaining gain for yourself, BY gaining for your loved ones. So you could ARGUE, that there is something non-optimal when it comes to individual balance with artificial gain. And honestly, individual balance with beneficial gain is probably great, but the collective might be more important where you’re from.

Now, by the looks of statistics, indulgences might not be what’s most pleasurable for people, rather it’s the freedom of choice that’s available in countries like the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

But what about cultures where the collective is more important than the individual?

Honestly, I’ve had a lot of people from India, or even Saudi Arabia watch my videos.

So if it’s appropriate, you can let me know in the comments if people are generally happy in their personal lives where you live in the world, or not.

But from a look that I took at some global and domestic happiness surveys, happiness levels are fairly low in these two countries, and in China as well.

6) So what’s RIGHT about having a traditional work-life balance?

Collectivist culture has probably been ossified over time as a response to suffering.

And that means the individual and their goals matters minimally.

Especially when there’s the West to compare to, it feels bad for those living in collectivist societies.

Look, I was gonna talk about this in my YouTube video, but I don’t think that there’s any point.

7) What can we conclude?

Especially because many of you are living in countries like the US, UK, Canada and Australia, don’t mistake indulgences for reward. You would be happier if your “breaks” were more fulfilling.

Because it’s not the consumables that make us happy, it’s the fact that we COULD freely consume them.

They exist, they’re available and most are fairly affordable or easy to have.

Ask yourself, “would I rather gain just for myself, or for my family, partner, kids or those around me as well?”

Since people have traditionally worked to gain reward for those close to them as well, chances are that doing things in your breaks, and in your work that better serve whoever matters to you, would make you happier.

And maybe those who aren’t YET close to you, so the world, has a tickling piece of importance to you as well...

And the difference between this and the collective priorities of some non-western countries, is that most of you watching actually have freedoms.

So you can do things for yourself, and so gaining for others shouldn’t really take away from your life, as opposed to adding to it.

Especially because one MAIN way of giving to others, is by bettering who you are as an individual.

This can be done by deciding what values you want to live by, and then ensuring that both your work time and break time reflects these values.

That’s where the secret piece of the puzzle comes in.

Value Activities.

Value Activities are things done in your work/study breaks that actually contribute to who you’re trying to become as an individual.

Like meditation if you value calmness, rather than YouTube.

Going for a walk if you value appreciation, rather than a movie.

Shit like that.

At the end of the day, I speak with conviction, the man that I am in accordance with the Values that I’ve lived by that day.

“I’m the kind of man who appreciates nature and shows his love for it by using his surroundings to strengthen his body physically and become harder to kill. Whilst… still in a relaxed state”. (one from 9 March)

That’s it!

Reimagine work-life balance.

I dare you… to Become a New Person in 30 Days.