Comments about ‘Everyone needs to build a balanced life’

It was weird, right before I opened up deseretnews.com today, I was thinking, I need a work life balance. I thank the author for his insite, and while I am aware of the extreme importance of work, and being competent at work, it is a piece in the puzzle. I hope I can leave my work at work when I go home today.

Balance is good, but excellence is usually better.

A world-class artist (piano, opera, violin, painter) is simply not going to have balance in their life. They're going to eat, drink, sleep, and work their fingers to the bone to do justice to whatever raw talent the Lord gave them.

And I think that is what the Lord expects - raw, hard, long, patient, work.

Think of all the happy vacations memories your wife and kids will be sharing. They will remember that you weren't there and work was more important.

"No man on his death bed has ever said, 'you know, I wish I'd spent more time at work.'" - Gordon B. Hinckley

I'm going to disagree with Quayle. I know many brilliantly talented people who have found wonderful balance in their personal life, while they strive for excellence. And let us not forget, raising a good family is also a "talent" that we should strive for excellence in. In the parable of the talents, the servants with 5 and 2 multiplied ALL their talents, not just one or two "important" ones.

I highly doubt that if you were reporting to the Lord at the end of it all, that He would say, well, you were a great pianist, a world-renowned physicist, but your children grew up without you, your spouse couldn't count on you, and you made little time to think about or help anyone but yourself - but hey! The prestige of your work was way more important!

What is that saying? "No success can compensate for failure in the home."

I like the author's point that whether you have a family or not, you still need balance to be a complete human being. That means giving service, developing other talents, or simply getting out to think and breathe a little and remember the important things in life.