Chapter 283 - No, You Can't Have It All[3]

The conventional answer, the answer you'll find in most bookstores and at most seminars is some variation of "do more with less," "practice time management," or as Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, "sleep faster."

El-Erian stated in his dad-of-the-year Facebook article that he spent years justifying missing his daughter's birthdays to himself — he was busy, work was too demanding, his travel schedule was insane.

This is the typical work/life balance, woe-is-me complaint we always hear: "I have all of these things I want to do and not enough time."

But what if the answer isn't to do more?

What if the answer is to want less?

What if the solution is simply accepting our bounded potential, our unfortunate tendency as humans to inhabit only one place in space and time. What if we recognize our life's inevitable limitations and then prioritize what we care about based on those limitations?

What if it's as simple as stating, "This is what I choose to value more than everything else," and then living with it?

When we attempt to do everything, to fill up life's checklist, to "have it all," we're essentially attempting to live a valueless life, a life where everything is equally gained and nothing lost. When everything is necessary and desired equally, then nothing is necessary or desired at all.

This past week, I received an email from a man who was distressed about his life situation. He had a job he hated and had become disconnected from the friends and activities he once cared about. He said he was depressed. He said he felt like he had lost himself. He said he hated his life.

But, he added in the end, he had become accustomed to the lifestyle his job afforded him. So quitting his job was out of the question. He then asked what he should do.

In my experience, the people who struggle with the so-called "life purpose" question, always complain that they don't know what to do. But the real problem is not that they don't know what to do. It's that they don't know what to give up.

El-Erian's priority was $100 million per year. His priority was CEO. His priority was private helicopters and stretch limos and bankers jerking off all over his balance sheet wherever he went. And to earn those things, he chose to give up being present in his daughter's life.

Until one day, he chose the opposite.