In my last post, I presented my take on the cost of balance in life. Without thinking about it, at least without over-analyzing it, I ended my post by addressing my own particular "blend" of balance: work, play and love. It took another Psychology Today blogger to explain to me why I had arrived where I have. This is the blend for a meaningful life.
Paul Thagard (University of Waterloo) just posted a blog entry that I couldn't resist reading, "What makes life worth living?" I've asked this question a number of times (this question took me to a seminary, monastery, and a Ph.D. in Psychology, among other things), and I've sought the answer to this question most of my life. I know I'm not alone in this pursuit. So, I wondered what this philosopher's answer was.
He wrote, " . . . happiness is usually the result of having a meaningful life." That meaning, he argues, comes from three activities: love, work and play.
Love, work, play
In his new book, The Brain and the Meaning of Life, Paul argues that these three activities make life worth living. Given that I strive to balance these three daily in my life, I guess I've arrived at the same conclusion.
I've found meaning in my life in the balance between activities in these three broad domains as Paul has defined them too: love, work and play. Perhaps most important were his last few words in that post. He wrote, ". . . even the pursuit is enough to give life meaning."
I agree. It's not the achievement of balance that gives my life meaning. It's pursuing this balance among these core life goals with some autonomy that provides meaning.
Ah, but what if we're not pursuing our goals? What if we procrastinate? What if we're not only procrastinating on some mundane report that we really don't want to do, but we're procrastinating on core projects in our lives? This is procrastination on projects that define us; projects that relate to love, work and play.
Unfortunately, this procrastination is not uncommon, and it's why I find procrastination so fascinating. We become our own worst enemy in getting on with life itself. We actually procrastinate on play in our lives or on love. We may buckle under when it comes to what Paul called work that is "wage slavery," but we procrastinate nonetheless.
It is here that we face the deeply existential nature of procrastination: the failure to act in our lives. Without this action, there is no pursuit. Without this pursuit there is no meaning.
Procrastination is not just the thief of time. It's the thief of meaning, our happiness and life itself.
