The Pillars of Life
Life cannot be balanced — only oriented. This essay explores the Pillars of Life: a framework for placing energy wisely when everything feels important at once.
Editor’s note: This essay explores one of the central questions behind Cultivated’s work — how we orient our lives when everything feels important at once.
The Pillars of Life
For years, I chased what people call work–life balance.
I read the books. Followed the advice. Tried to divide life into neat compartments:
Work here.
Family there.
Health squeezed somewhere in between.
It never worked.
What I found instead was tension.
A constant pull between competing demands.
And I’ve come to believe this is not a failure of planning.
It is the nature of life.
The question is not how to eliminate tension — but how to live with it.
That is where the Pillars of Life came from.
Not as a system.
But as a way of orienting myself when everything feels important at once.
Listen to the podcast, or read on for more plus a video
When It All Fell Apart
For most of my career, I built one pillar obsessively.
Work.
Productivity. Performance. Delivery.
I believed that if I achieved enough, I would eventually feel settled.
Complete.
But while I was strengthening that pillar, the others were quietly eroding.
My health slipped.
Time with my family thinned.
I told myself it was temporary.
It never is.
Eventually, it caught up with me.
Not a tiredness cured by a long weekend — but a collapse that forces you to question everything.
My foundation had cracked.
Rebuilding From the Ground Up
At that low point, I had to ask harder questions.
What actually matters?
What must be strong if a life is to last?
Slowly, I began to define my own pillars — the foundations that needed attention if I was to stand upright over time.
What became clear is this:
The pillars are never equal.
They are always in tension.
The aim is not balance.
It is conscious choice.
The Six Pillars
These are the six I try to live by today.
Not perfectly.
Deliberately.
Health
I ignored this longest — and paid for it.
Health underpins everything else.
Without it, all other achievements eventually collapse.
Tending to health is not selfish.
It is structural.
Family
Burnout forces uncomfortable clarity.
What is success worth if you have no one to share it with?
Family is the anchor.
When I neglected mine, no professional success compensated.
Productivity & Effectiveness
This was once my identity.
Effectiveness matters — but worshipping it is dangerous.
It must support life, not consume it.
Money & Finance
Money brings stability and options.
It does not bring meaning.
It is a tool, not a scorecard.
Societal Impact
At some point I asked:
Would anyone miss my work if I stopped?
Contribution matters.
Leaving things better than you found them matters.
Education
Learning binds the rest together.
It is how we adapt across seasons.
Not accumulation of information — but growth in judgement.
Living With Tension
I still do not live in balance.
Some weeks work dominates.
Other weeks family does.
Occasionally health demands everything.
The difference now is that I notice.
The pillars do not remove difficulty.
They provide orientation.
They help me place weight consciously instead of drifting blindly.
Orientation, Not Optimisation
Life is not a machine to be balanced.
It is a structure to be supported.
The work is not to eliminate tension.
It is to distribute it wisely.
Because we only get one foundation.
And when it cracks, everything else follows.
Video
Editor’s note: This essay grows from an earlier exploration in another medium. The thinking remains central, even as the format has changed.
