Let’s talk about balance today. Balance implies perfection. We’ve been taught since a very young age that nobody’s perfect yet it’s human nature to pursue and celebrate it when achieved. I agree with the pursuit of perfection. It’s what drives us—it is competition at its finest. What happens when we fail to achieve perfection? Failure in the form of balance? Have a seat, we’ve got a few things to unpack…

The pursuit of balance in life, while individually subjective, means that an equilibrium has been achieved between competing forces over a period of time. Achieving equilibrium sounds even more perfect than perfect, so let’s go for it. Work-life balance, or equilibrium, can mean different things to different people; I am of the opinion that it is one of two things:

1. Achieving balance by sacrificing one’s professional goals to prioritize time with family, friends, and personal interests (but that coworker from Old School didn’t even like golf).

2. Working your tail off now at the likely expense of your family and friends so perhaps one day, when you feel all that success has been achieved, you can have balance. With whom will you celebrate said balance? Was the goal to spend time with your family then after all those years of just being a moderate husband, wife, mom, dad, or friend when time permits?

The former certainly sounds nice, but is this really achievable? Are you choosing to moderately neglect your professional life? What if you are an entrepreneur at heart but need to work a corporate-type job that affords you balance at home, even if you can barely afford to take the whole family out for dinner? The latter may never even materialize, but at least you’ll be able to afford that extra serving of physical neglect.

We here at Moderate Neglect don’t have all the answers. We might have 99 problems and balance is most certainly one of them…but we are committed to addressing the challenges we all face in life and business, so stay tuned.

Will it be as revolutionary as we thought while discussing over a couple of beers - only one way to find out. We do know one thing for certain: it is so much more than the meme that kickstarted this idea just over a year ago.

What meme, you ask? We’ll get to that soon enough…