Work Life Balance

I wrote the other day about having balance in the gym routine. Lots of people tend to work the muscles they feel are seen; guys work arms and chest, women abs and legs. But a very important part of the gym workout is making sure you have symmetry and balance in your appearance.

The same can be said of life. Some work hard for appearances of wealth and neglect other aspects of their lives. I am not saying that wealt is a bad thing. Far from it. Wealth makes many things possible. It also makes life more enjoyable. But if that is your main focus, and other parts of your life suffer, you are in a losing situation.


I have tried through the years to keep a balance and to keep things in perspective. I got a yin yang tattoo many many years ago (before the surge in popularity of that sort of thing, and the whole Asian influence explosion) That tattoo was placed to remind me to keep things even. In my mind it is the mental and the physical that needs balance. And then in those groups are the sub-categories.

Mental can be broken down into learning and growing mentally and into spiritualism. you can continue to break these down as you will. Spirituality can be religion or it can be communicating with nature, god, goddess, the universe, a tree, whatever you think is the right thing at the time. Mental growth can be school, a mentor, a book or surfing the web.

Physical can be broken into your living state (house, car, money, family) and into your physical well being, basically meaning your health. Health can be how your body is functioning as a unit of sustaining your brain, and how you are maintaining that state through physical activity, sustenance and such. I take sustenance one step further (and I think it is a needed step) that you are not only eating properly, whole food as close to nature as possible, but that you are also supplementing your diet with things it does not contain.

There is a lot that I have just written on in a short few paragraphs, but these are things that some people forget as they try to ‘make ends meet.’ There is so much more to life than that, and if you stay in a perpetual state of worry over making ends meet, you are holding yourself and those around you down to that state. I really have found that by focusing on positive aspects, even in the most negative situations, thing turn the corner. Without getting to deep into it, my life took a serious downturn about six months ago, and we could have decided to focus on the worst, but we didn’t and have come out of all of it stronger and in a better place, I think both physically and mentally speaking.

Don’t ever give up. Balance your life through doing the things you need to do to survive and also doing things that are going to take you to a higher place.

Symmetry and Balance - Yin & the Yang

I worked out today and concentrated on my legs. This is something that gets neglected by a certain element of gym rats. I often see guys with huge chest and arms, and they have on sweat pants to cover the toothpicks that are supporting them. This is usually combined with a tank top to show off their well developed arms.

This is the opposite of a pyramid. You need to have a firm strong foundation to any structure and that includes your body. I usually do leg press, squats, leg extensions, leg curls, seated calf raise and standing calf raise. (Calves often get overlooked as well.) Today I found a machine that works the tibialis anterior, which runs parallel to the shin. This is sort of a toe raise exercise - Just one more thing to add into the routine.

Balance doesn’t stop there. You have to think push-pull when you work out. What muscle or muscles are the opposite of what you are working? Think of them as being in pairs; bicep-tricep, back-chest, quads-hams. If you don’t work them evenly, your body will start to ease into the direction of the overworked muscle.

This also applies to the rest of your life. If you spend too much time on the physical, the mental suffers. If you spend too much time on making money, your spiritual side will suffer. Balance in all things.

a video version, of sorts is here