How is your pie

Balancing your Life

When I was growing up there was a game called trivial pursuit. Each pie was for a topic like geography, history etc. I always thought life was similar and see it as the small plastic pie with little triangular coloured pieces that represent each area of your life. I guess each pie is what is important to each individual but covers things like spiritual, relationships, financial, career, friends, and knowledge. If you neglect any area of your life, your pie will always be unbalanced and you will not find true happiness.

The basic tenant is you need to work on all your pies in a consistent manner. Or if one pie is particularly lacking, you need to pay it more attention than it deserves in order to rebalance your life.

Olympic skiers or over achieving careerists will tend to work on a particular pie. The only thing is that time is the common enemy of all mankind. If you ‘over-dedicate’ your time to one pie, it will most likely be to the detriment of other pies. If you want to be like Eddie the eagle and compete at an Olympics, you will probably have to sacrifice friends, family or spiritual growth in order to achieve the 20,000hours or whatever they say is required to master a skill. There are no shortcuts. Now I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but you need to be cognisant that there is a trade-off to be made. If achieving excellence in that one pie means so much to you, (I.e. you really want to be that FTSE 100 CEO) then go for it but realise it will cost you some of your other pies.

I have thought about how one can expand the capacity of your pies. Is it possible to shortcut or outsource some of these? Beyond a Churchillian endeavour of only sleeping 3 hours a night, which for most people would lead to a rapid reduction in the health pie, I don’t believe there is. You can’t outsource social contacts. Twitter and Facebook may be a more efficient medium for reaching a greater number of social networks, but doesn’t replace true friendship. Equally babysitters and weekend treats can help slightly dealing with a family when you are dedicating your life to your work / career but will not compensate for a long term lack of relationship. I’m afraid each pie needs the application of time and energy by you. You can possibly reframe certain pies and get the benefit of dual pies. (i.e. if you really enjoy an outdoor pursuit this can satisfy your fitness pie, your relaxation time for yourself pie and your friendship pie if say you were friends with your tennis partner or running companions).

Unfortunately though life is as an Accountant would say a balancing zero sum game. It is the application of time (a dwindling resource) and energy towards the different facets of your life (pies). Any more application to one area will by default require adjustment to others. Or you can take a balanced view and work on all pies simultaneously. I don’t know which is better and often in life you find a need at a point in time to work on a particular area. When you are young and joining the work force it makes sense to put in those extra hours and become noticed as a team player. Equally when one is good at a particular sport and the Olympics are around the corner, it would make sense to go for it. Any pies that are temporarily left alone can be recovered later with a renewed application of time and energy. Just a thought.