Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of balance in life to achieve happiness and fulfillment.

Abstract

The author uses the metaphor of a well-balanced burger to illustrate that life, like a good meal, requires a harmonious blend of ingredients to be satisfying. Highlighting personal experiences with summer weather and the purchase of an air cooler, the author underscores the need for equilibrium in various aspects of life, including work, leisure, and personal relationships. The article discusses the concepts of marginal returns and marginal costs, suggesting that excessive focus on one area leads to diminishing benefits and increased negative side effects. It advocates for finding the "golden mean" where one can enjoy the benefits of their efforts without succumbing to the drawbacks of extremes. The author encourages readers to explore their interests and passions but also to recognize the value of a well-rounded life, drawing inspiration from figures like Elon Musk who, despite his intense work ethic, maintains a diverse set of interests.

Opinions

The author expresses a strong preference for summer but acknowledges the challenge of hot nights, which they have addressed with the purchase of an air cooler.
Extremes in any aspect of life, such as weather, politics, religion, or work, are seen as leading to extreme side effects and are discouraged.
The principle of diminishing marginal returns is applied to life, suggesting that beyond a certain point, additional effort yields less benefit and potentially harmful consequences.
The author believes that exploring the opposite of an extreme can offer significant benefits with relatively low costs, such as the enjoyment of a treat while on a strict diet.
A happy life is depicted as one that finds the "sweet spot" between work and leisure, exercise and rest, rather than leaning too far in any direction.
The article suggests that temporary exploration of extremes can be beneficial for discovering passions and interests but should not become a permanent state.
The author asserts that life should be diverse and balanced, using the metaphor of a burger with the right combination of buns, patties, and toppings to represent core values, main activities, and unique personal interests.

The Truth About Living a Happier Life

Life is like a delicious burger — it has to be well balanced.

I’m a summer kid. I love the sun. The heat. The blue sky and long days. Walking around in swim trunks or shorts all the time. Driving out to a lake and taking a dip every 30 minutes to avoid melting away in the burning heat.

If you asked me, it could be hot and sunny all year round.

There’s only one thing I hate about summer. The nights. Where I live, it’s way too hot to sleep, at least for me. I usually spend most of the night lying stretched out and naked on my bed, with a fan on high, trying to get at least four or five hours of sleep a night. So yesterday, I finally bought an air cooler. Low energy consumption, quiet, enough to cool down my room to a temperature I can sleep in. Perfect. This summer is gonna be the best summer ever. Hot and sweat-breaking during the day, but still sleeping like a baby at night. Ahhh.

Alright, so why in the world am I telling you about my air cooler? Did I run out of topics to write about? No. I tell you about my air cooler to shine light on one of the most basic, yet most overlooked principles of life: Life is about balance.

Marginal returns and marginal costs

To show you why this is so crucial, we have to put the cart before the horse for a moment.

If you don’t focus on balance in your life, you’ll drift to the extremes. And extremes beget extreme side effects. Weather, politics, religion, work. Extreme heat brings extreme drought. Extreme political convictions bring intolerance and radical behavior. Extreme religious beliefs bring extreme behavior towards people of different faith. Extreme working hours bring extreme stress.

At the same time, your marginal returns get smaller. Your marginal returns are the benefits you get from moving further into a certain direction or doing more of a specific thing, e.g. working more. When you are only working 20 hours a week, another five on top will make a large difference in terms of money earned and experience gained — it’s a 25% increase after all. But if you’re already packing an 80-hour week, taking on another five won’t boost your experience or paycheck as much — the marginal return is smaller, especially compared to what you already have.

On the other hand, if you’re already located in an extreme, exploring a little bit of the other side will have large returns with very low costs. Cutting down your work hours from 85 to 80 won’t make much of a difference, but your family will appreciate the extra time they get to spend with you. If you stick to your diet seven days a week and track your calories correct to a dot, a cookie every now and then won’t hurt you — but boy, will it taste good.

The pain level for [work] hours increases exponentially. It’s like nonlinear above 80.

— Elon Musk

Finding the golden mean

Too much or too little of something will kill you. Whether it’s work, exercise, or hydration. The key to a happy life is finding that sweet spot in the middle. You won’t live a happy and fulfilled life if all you ever do is work, or if you never work at all. Spending all day beating your body up at the gym with no time for rest and regeneration is bad for your health, just like never leaving the couch at all.

Unfortunately, we often tend to drift towards the extremes. We fall in love with someone, spend all our time with them and in turn neglect all our friends. We stumble upon a new restaurant with delicious food and go there every day until we get sick from just thinking about it. We binge-watch season after season of a show, glued to a TV screen until our eyes turn square and our backs hurt from laying on the couch.

That is not to say that you have to be perfectly balanced all the time. No. In fact, you need to explore and sometimes dive into the extremes to see what it feels like. That’s how you find your passions and interests in life — you try out different things and then focus on what you want, ditching the rest.

But at one point, you need to realize that life has so much to offer that it would be a shame to focus on one single thing only — unless you are one of the very few people who are destined to be completely absorbed in their one true calling. However, even Elon Musk, who spends at least 80 hours per week working, finds some time for reading and has started multiple different companies.

My life isn’t yours and yours isn’t your next-door neighbor’s. Still, they all need some balance.

Whatever that balance looks like to you is something you have to figure out — it’s your life, after all.

Life is like a burger

Life is like a delicious burger. And you are the chef who cooks it up.

A proper whopper needs some buns and patties as a core. These are your values, your job, your family — the basics that bring some structure to your life. So choose carefully here — are you gonna go with lamb, beef, or veggie patties? Ciabatta, brioche, or Kaiser rolls as buns?

While these are the main ingredients and everything else revolves around them, the real kicker, the things that make your life unique and interesting, come from the toppings. The spices. The sauces. The cheese — cheddar, Swiss, blue, or none at all? These are your passions. Your interests. Your unique character traits.

If you take everything that’s available and slap it on there, not only will the mix taste weird, but your burger will also fall apart — there is simply too much going on in your life.

If you focus too much on a single thing — that is, you use nothing else but patties and buns — it’s going to taste bland.

The perfect match is somewhere in the middle — where the buns, patties, spices, sauces, toppings, and the cheese go well with each other.

Life is about balance.

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