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I think Life can be represented by this Venn Diagram and the sweet spot is elusive.
Here is my very proprietary depiction of Life (I had to create this in excel!).
The terms are simplified but they notify these areas of life:
Money: career, business, wealth, money, success
Health: both mental and physical
Love: family, relationships, marriage, children.
Every bubble is important. There is parity. You can have all the money in the world, but if you’re not healthy or you don’t feel loved, your life sucks and some even decide to call it quits. Look at how many celebrities struggle with relationships and mental health, despite being wealthy. Or look at Steve Jobs — rich, but died early.
If you are in love or have a good family, but don’t have financial freedom or good health, well, that’s no good either.
If you are healthy but lonely, there is no joy in being healthy.
I am thinking the universe is working hard on making it difficult for us, the human race, to be in the center of this diagram. To make things even more complicated, there are interdependencies between the three circles. Say you struggle in one of them — the struggles easily spill over to other circles. The universe is very smart at making the puzzle unsolvable.
What’s the moral of the story? I don’t know. I guess we should be aware of the importance of all three circles and strive to live balanced lives. Self-improvement and personal development advice should try to encompass all three areas of life. The problem is that no one has it fully figured out; not many people are in the sweet spot. That’s why I don’t like motivational speakers or self-improvement gurus. Motivational speakers are success porn (borrowing the term from this story by Matthew Maniaci on Medium that I came across recently — thank you for this lovely story!)
I’m off my Sunday long run! I guess I’m healthy. I have a good family. But that green circle at the bottom has been a fucking roller coaster… For many years. The kind when the cabin stops mid-ride and hangs upside down. It often affects the mental health part… It affects the love part too. Some days are just dark when all three bubbles deflate and float away from each other. But they are still your life! And you chasing them.
Have a good weekend!
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