Work / Life Balance - and other Fallacies

There is much information available today on work / life balance.  I've tried for years to achieve it, and came to the conclusion that sitting in the middle of this continuum is a grand exercise in futility.

The problem for me is that there are so many more facets who I am and what I do than what I do at my work and what I do when I'm not at work.

So being the introvert who over-processes most every conundrum that comes my way, I've come up with a model for a balanced life that has worked for me for a number of years.

I got the idea from a fun, but very unreliable automobile.

Years ago, I acquired an Austin Mini (not the new sexy ones made by BMW, but the original Mr. Bean variety).  The car was affordable, but came with a particular temperament that required me to be under the hood (or bonnet) on a regular basis.

Not my Mini, but you get the idea...

It was a very simple car, and so my marginal mechanical skills were sufficient to keep it going. It was also the most poorly designed car from the point of view that the distributor (the part of the engine that decided which spark plug would fire when) worked best when dry and sheltered from the elements.  The engineers must not have been thinking well that day since this bit of the engine was positioned pointing out to the front, right where all the rain would come through the radiator grill.

It was a mystery to me why a car would be designed this way, especially when it came from a country where it rained more than it didn't.  This design of the engine ensured that when it was raining, the engine misfired terribly, and sometimes I would limp home running on two of the four cylinders.

When the distributor was dry and all the cylinders were firing, the little engine ran as smooth as silk. Which gets me to the point of this post.