Resilient Balance: First things First

14 April 2021

Though I spend little time in the world of financial investment, I am interested in some of the ideas that govern prudent asset management.  One of the most unusual combinations of wisdom and investment savvy resides within the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett.  I promised myself I would base a blog on one of his aphorisms: “You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

My laughter arises from thinking of just how misguided a man would have to be to subscirbe to that belief.  And such a man probably doesn’t exist.  But there are men and women, myself amongst them, who haven’t fully fathomed Mr. Buffett’s underlying thinking.  As I see it, he’s comparing the effects of scattershot investment, in short-term temptation, versus prudent planning, research, and long-term commitment.  The latter requiring judgment, conviction, stewardship, and patience.

In terms of living a well-spirited life, this means living by an expression we had all heard by Grade 1: first things first.  As it happens, some psychologists maintain that rather than nine pregnant women, the dimensions of wellness consist of eight balanced segments.  And the tricky word here is “balanced.”  Are these to be balanced evenly, unevenly, or in a methodical manner?

First the segments: emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual.  Even the alphabetical order in which these segments are listed tends to bias my focus.  My argument is that the balance of time invested per segment should be completely individual.  That is, you have your own priorities.  Those priorities are probably based on your own purpose and individual aptitudes.  Where we can go wrong, is in not reviewing and correcting our time allocations.

Shorter-term values change as our situations change.  If you were intent on Warren Buffett’s nine one-month terms, you would be devoting equal energy to each of the eight segments throughout your life.  I don’t believe a well-balanced life works this way.  As we keep hearing, when all you’ve got is lemons, make lemonade!  Or, prioritize based on your current life conditions with an eye to creating your ideal life conditions.

What that means, in terms of the segments, is that different life challenges call for different amounts of time invested in each segment.  If you’re unhappily underemployed, you probably want to allocate the majority of your working-hours time to the occupational and financial segments.  But here’s the danger. 

If we assume that a well-spirited life depends on regular attention to these eight segments, life starts to look like a mainteance exercise.  Until it doesn’t.  Life appears to stop being about maintenance when major changes occur: facing addiction, death of a loved one, health issues, or career reversals all challenge our balance.  And, of course, there’s one of life’s little ironies here because any of those changes tends to throw us off our daily rhythm when we most need the steadiness and reassurance that rhythm offers.

Let’s look at two people.  The first loses her husband and feels her entire world has imploded.  She stops going to the gym, doesn’t return phone calls, begins drinking more alcohol, which encourages her to smoke more cigarettes, both of which mess with her eating, sleep...her eight segments are lost in smokey, blue misery.

A neighbour loses his job, unexpectedly after twenty years of faithful service to his profession.  He is angry, hurt, and feels professionally isolated.  But he believes his own behaviours were responsible for getting him into his profession and they’re just as likely to help him move forward now.  So he doubles down on his reading time, gym attendance, and networking opportunities.  He assesses his costs and revenue realistically, talks to his spouse and friends about how he’s feeling, and even volunteers as a server at a Friday night charity supper in his neighbourhood. 

Further, he begins to admit to himself, and later to a therapist, that he had some responsibility in losing that job.  Where’s this guy going?  Upward in ability to cope, self-knowledge, and self-regard.

Who is more likely to find a well-balanced equilibrium more quickly and painlessly?  As in previous blogs, the vector analogy helps.  Our unfortunate widow, by following emotion into bad habit-formation, has directed her own life downward into chaos and pain.  The unemployed man has intelligently managed his life segments and kept his direction upwardly aimed at a well organized life of meaning and satisfaction. 

If you begin to ignore the emotional, social, and physical segments of your life, you’re more susceptible to anxiety, isolation, and depression.  All of these, causes and effects, harm your wellness.  Similarly, if you ignore the intellectual, environmental, and spiritual segments of your life, you feel stale, uninspired, and lost.  Bottom line: well-balanced lives require attention to all eight segments throughout life, but with changing percentages devoted to each.  Don’t create Warren Buffett’s next example of poorly conceived, equal-opportunity investments—know where you’re at.  Resilient balance is hard work that pays dividends.

Dan Chalykoff provides one-to-one counselling concerning life direction, addiction, and change. He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own understandings of ideas.  Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery: danchalykoff@hotmail.com