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Perhaps today’s #1 mantra is “work-life balance.” I think that’s misguided. I believe life is better-led when you spend as many heartbeats as possible, perhaps 60 or 70 hours a week, using your best abilities to make the biggest difference to society or at least to your sphere of influence. That’s what I call milking your heartbeats.
Let me unpack that. Work-life balance activists urge us to spend hours 40 to 70 on revitalization, pleasure, family, and so on. But I believe those hours would, in many cases, be more restorative and beneficial if spent, as mentioned, using your best abilities to make the biggest difference possible. In addition to the altruism, you're more likely to feel good about yourself, that you're doing something important, so you're more likely to take care of yourself—to eat well, exercise, not do drugs, etc.
Let's start with me since I know myself better than I do others. My best ability is thinking on my feet, verbally and in writing. So, during hours 40 to 70, I don’t just default to playing ball, hanging out with my wife, let alone meditating; I look for opportunities to use that ability so it makes the biggest difference possible. That’s why I’ve written 12 books and 3,500 articles, 1,386 for Psychology Today alone. And crucially, I write about ideas that aren’t widely held. Otherwise, I’d make less difference. For example, I am very pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage, but so are most readers, so I don’t write or speak about that. But I am at least equally passionate about some things that are unpopular or under-considered. For example, this post presents a view that while rarely advocated, I believe is worthy of consideration. Another example: I am convinced that the key to addressing many social ills is understanding the genetic basis of intelligence, leading toward developing gene therapy to enhance intelligence, ethically applied, that is, completely voluntary with subsidies for the poor, just like any medical treatment. So I write about that and speak to intelligence researchers. Spending many of hours 40-70 on such activities allows me to make a bigger difference, and to, day in and day out, feel good that I’m living an unusually contributory lifestyle.
A word about relationships. The foregoing might lead you to conclude that I’m not married or that I have a bad marriage. Not true. I married someone who also works long hours and while we spend relatively little time together, the time we do spend we enjoy. I daresay that our relationship has a higher pleasure-to-pain ratio than most couples'. We’ve been together for 45 years and look forward to being married to each other for the rest of our lives. In addition, I believe that having provided quality but not quantity time to my daughter facilitated her development. She acquired self-efficacy, a can-do attitude, and a lack of entitlement that would be the envy of many children of helicopter parents.
Affording it
It's easier to prioritize contribution if your expenses are low. Keys to that are housing and higher education. If I were starting out and chose not to live with my parents, I'd make the one-time effort to find a well below-market backyard cottage, attic or basement apartment in someone's home in a nice neighborhood. To that end, I'd let all my friends know I was looking and also post flyers on telephone poles and on ultra-local online groups in nice areas explaining that I am a responsible person looking to find a place in the neighborhood for $1,000 a month. While that's well below market price, many people in such neighborhoods exist, for example, wealthy widows, who care less about maximizing profit than about having a trustworthy man around for a sense of security and to do bits of help around the house, for example, moving heavy objects. Of course, the odds of finding such an arrangement are small but they exist and it's worth the one-time effort to find one. Indeed, my first place in Berkeley was for $500 a month in today's dollars—and it was in a lovely home.
Regarding higher education, while a designer-label diploma enhances job and personal prospects, and spending four years with Ivy-caliber students is a plus, most people don't have that option. For them, it's often wise to start and perhaps finish at a community college, where, surprisingly, the teaching is on average better than at those research-first/teaching-last universities. Plus, most community colleges have some students who are good role models. Having your kids at least start at a community college can save a fortune while improving your kids' net quality of life. For more on that, see my article on the subject in TIME.
Turning to you
Now, let’s turn to you. If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you’re at least open to milking more from your heartbeats.
First, what is your best ability, especially that which comes naturally to you? Don’t know? Make a list of your few most impressive accomplishments, perhaps those that other people have praised you for. Now look for a common thread: Is there an ability or two that you’ve used in at least a couple of your best accomplishments?
Now ask yourself where could you apply that ability to make the biggest difference. For example, if you’re a build-it/fix-it person, should you, during hours 40 to 70, even on a volunteer basis, build or fix something that will benefit lots of people? If you’re a researcher/investigative type, should you spend some discretionary hours as a researcher for a scientist or author you believe in, or digging up some corporate or governmental waste or malfeasance and submitting an article to a local publication? If you’re artistic, should you create something for a cause you believe in? If you’re social, should you be a mentor, sell a product or fundraise for a cause you think is worthy or be the right-arm to a heavy-hitter doing such work? If you’re entrepreneurial, should you guide a would-be self-employed person on how to succeed ethically? If you’re an office-detail person, should you spend some discretionary time using your accounting or programming skills in a way that would make a real difference?
The takeaway: If this article leads even one reader to spend some more of their discretionary hours “milking their heartbeats,” the heartbeats I spent writing this article will have been worth it.
I extemporize on this topic on YouTube.
