Life doesn't have to be a balancing act

I've been reading a lot lately about the importance of balancing your life. Actually that's not true, I just read one article in Marie Claire about it, but I do know people are always talking about how important it is to keep our lives balanced.

The thing that strikes me, however, is that you never hear about the benefits of living an unbalanced life, and I find that peculiar.

There are always two sides to everything. Why, then, do we not hear about people who think working your life away is better than balancing things off?

The answer is because they have been made to feel ashamed of this, that they should want more.

The argument is always: "You never hear anyone say on their death bed that they wished they spent more time at the office."

That's true, but perhaps that's because it's a ridiculous statement. I'm certain that people do think on their death bed that they wish they had accomplished more or made more of a difference in the world.

Looking back through history, most anyone that has made a significant contribution to society has dedicated an abnormal amount of time to his or her chosen path.

There are, of course, side effects of working too much, but I'm not all that convinced of just how bad they are.

Take for instance my geotechnical engineering lab — where we play with dirt. It's the perfect example of what happens when you live an unbalanced life. All the men that came up with these experiments — for which they're named, I'm sure — worked long hours, as is quite apparent in the names of the procedures, because everything sounds very dirty, pardon the pun.

And because I get very excited about all of these experiments, I will make an exclamation and then turn red as soon as I realize that though I was intending to voice satisfaction upon our discovery that 11 percent is apparently the optimum moisture content needed in order to compact the soil to its maximum density, what I actually said could be the subject of an immature joke.

So it's basically three hours once a week of everyone trying to restrain themselves from saying the infantile phrase "that's what she said."

But we all just couldn't resist the temptation.

Maybe the consequences of men living in the laboratory is an acceptable exchange, though. Having the burden of three hours a week of naughty-sounding lab procedures is the price we have to pay in order to benefit from their discoveries. Maybe, just maybe, it was the deprivation of a so-called "life" that allowed the men and women of science to excel in their fields.

Who knows what advancements the world is missing out on because of the craze for balanced living.

I'm certain, at the very least, you would never see any fellow students flying off their skateboards because they just hit a bump in the sidewalk; they would be using those hoverboards like in Back to the Future Part II.

But no, just before someone was about to finish his hoverboard equation, just as the epiphany was about to hit, his wife called to remind him it was date night.

It just seems to be such a fine line between needing to be fit for a straitjacket and being simply, harmlessly, obsessed with your work.

Obsession is a very close friend of mine. Balance feels unnatural to me. All or nothing is all I know.

But sometimes when my very close friend and I are not getting along, I fantasize about balance and begin to envy it's very close friends, normal people is what I call them.

I am, however, starting to think this is not something I can train myself to be. I have found that when I, in response to envy, attempt to betray obsession and live a life with balance, it is a rotation of "all" for a few days followed by "nothing" for a few days. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not correct.

So I try and look on the bright side. There is the benefit of life being more pleasant when you keep yourself busy enough to avoid having time to think about anything that you may be lacking. After all, if you never think about what you lack, then you lack nothing.

I'm not sure if I made that saying up or read it on a tiny piece of paper with lottery numbers printed just below, but I'm 99 percent convinced it's true.