I recently met up with my 98 year old great-uncle and I asked him about his perspective on how people balanced work with other things in life back when he was working full-time, and his father before him.

Sufficed to say, pursuing balance wasn’t in their vocabulary. Nor was “having fun” a particular priority.

That’s not to say that people didn’t have a good time, and get satisfaction from their work. But expectations were different.

Do you think the concept of work-life balance is helpful? Does our generation overthink these things? Or is a preoccupation with balance a sign of progress, and something to appreciate and value?