Pillars: work/entrepreneurship, Love (family, friends, couple’s life), health, knowledge/learning (hobbies, languages, sports, etc.), and spiritual life.
Those who succeed are the ones who best manage to allocate their resources of time, energy, and attention. Life is unfair, but there is a certain equity to it, you see, whether rich or poor, tall or short, everyone has the same amount of time and roughly the same level of energy and attention. Although our attention and energy vary according to our habits and our discipline.
The Trap of Seeking a Balanced Life
A commonly shared idea is the importance of living a balanced life. Seeking balance is a static view of life. What one should seek is dynamic balance, like a bicycle that stays upright on its path although there is a constant alternation between the two pedals. If one were to take a picture at a moment T, neither of the two pedals would be in phase with each other, if that were the case, the cyclist would fall.
A balanced life is an illusion when the observation period is too short. What matters is seeking balance over a duration that extends beyond a single day, week, or month. A balanced life should be measured on a scale that counts in years, not less.
The Power of Focus
By resolutely deciding not to seek balance over too short an observation period, you allow your energy and attention to have a real impact. To do this, it appears necessary to sacrifice certain areas of your life. It’s the same phenomenon we observe when concentrating the rays of the sun. For these rays to trigger combustion of a piece of paper, they must be sufficiently concentrated. Without this level of concentration that could be described as a breakpoint, combustion will not occur.
Reaching the Breakpoint or Critical Mass
What differentiates a horse that wins the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe from one that finishes second is often just the length of their muzzle. This difference is achieved through a set of different parameters: the horse’s genetics, the quality of training, veterinary care, nutrition, etc. This difference could be reformulated differently: a variation in intensity. Each parameter that contributed to the horse’s success could be likened to a ray of the sun. Although of a different nature in the case of the horse, these parameters all converge towards the goal of being the best.
The Five Pillars
You might contest the nature of these five pillars by proposing alternatives or saying that health and spiritual life are continuous. I would partly agree, but I would also tell you that when one works a lot, for example, often one’s health deteriorates, and some spiritual life is set aside. Ideally, our work would both ensure good health and be in perfect accord with our spiritual inclinations. You might also say that each of the five pillars could be a ray of sunlight, converging in the same direction, like the example of the racehorse. The ultimate goal would then be a happy life. Here I would disagree somewhat, as each of these elements acts in a somewhat selfish manner, if one might say. Professional life is often built at the expense of personal life and vice versa. The various dimensions of life mutually nourish but also cannibalize each other greatly. This stands out a bit from the example of the horse where good nutrition and genetics can only enhance the quality of the horse’s training. Conversely, a highly developed spiritual life is rarely synonymous with professional hyper-success (except perhaps in the case of a karma yogi).
In Practice
When I say to choose 2 permanently, it does not mean abandoning the other three. It simply means to focus, while maintaining what exists in the other spheres of life, in short doing the minimum so that what you have built does not get lost. You cannot afford to turn your back on your family or your health under the pretext that you are focusing on your entrepreneurial life and your learning.
Discipline is Happiness
All these things ultimately aim to create a discipline that will make you happy in the end. Happiness is obtained indirectly. It’s a target that is both moving and only reached by ricochet. In short, happiness is like cycling, a state of constant dynamic balance.”
