Building A Life

There is some sage advice about building a life in this video from Howard Stevenson, derived from a man whose self reflection was inspired by a brush with death after surviving a cardiac event. The audience for this talk is Harvard Business School students, those with ambitions and a drive to succeed. For these folks, his advice is for them to remember that excellence in on area does not compensate for neglect in another. These would be areas like career goal attainment but also a reminder to pursue personal relationships and meaning in one’s life.

His idea that life is about juggling, and not about static balance, resonates with me. I watched this video, logged off my computer, and offered to play a game of chess with my youngest son. I had been pushing off his request for a few hours to instead finish up some last minute emails. Juggling priorities is difficult for me now because there are too many. My priorities now include school, work, family, health, and then the other smaller planets in my orbit. Each one of these has a subset of priorities. At work it is my team, my clients, and my personal work. In my family it is my wife and my two sons. For my health it is exercising and eating right and trying to age well. For school it is just doing the best work on an assignment and submitting it on time. Notice I didn’t mention a social life (non-existent) or hobbies (no time). I tell myself I will make time for these but I do not. Perhaps I can do that when school falls off and I graduate.