# The Mediocrity of Work Hard, Play Hard By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-05-30 Many people go on vacations to be distracted. It's a break from the daily grind and something new that occupies their attention. People pay thousands of dollars for these distractions. The question is this the point of a vacation? In some ways, yes. Distractions provide time and space for things to develop and for your mind to fixate on something else. However, if the problem you are facing is big enough, no amount of flashy distractions will fully occupy your thoughts. Late at night, early in the morning, or in a moment of waiting for dinner, ideas about your problem or upcoming event will surface in the back of your mind. At what point might these thoughts cease to exist? If you are distracted for a week, the significant life stressors will surely not subside. They might be tampered down a bit as distance reveals priorities and reframes meaning. What about a month away from the problem? Surely by then, you'll have forgotten about most issues. A month of doing something completely different is like reprogramming your brain to live a new life. It doesn't mean you won't or can't fall back into old ways of being; it just reflects the flexibility of our humanity. Our brains are problem-solving machines. Generating endless alternatives and forever seeking ways to survive and thrive. The problem is very few people can take a month away from their problems, so we never get the time to put them into perspective. Working hard and playing hard permeates many aspects of our modern lives. Let's say that hard reflects intensity, and work and play exist on the same axis, with play on the left and work on the right. The further you get from the center, the more intense or "hard" the play or work. Therefore, wouldn't the work hard and play hard mindset average out to a fairly mediocre life in the middle? Could we achieve the same mediocrity with work easy and play easy? Work and play still balance each other out. Work easy would still be work, and productivity would still happen, but we could do it with less intensity. The same goes for play. Instead of 3 months of intense work grind followed by two weeks of extreme jet-setting around the world with endless play experiences, what if play and work alternated much more frequently? Four hours of work followed by four hours of play. Might our minds be different? Might our real priorities take hold? We are at a point in history where this is a real possibility. We have to take it, and along the way figure out how to avoid a life of mediocrity. #### Related Items [[Work]] [[Vacation]] [[Mindset]] [[Thinking]] [[Problem Solving]] [[Purpose]] [[Reflection]]