I beg to differ.

FOMO?

You’re right: you are missing out. Anyone saying otherwise is selling something.

Focus necessitates sacrifice.

But that’s okay if what you’re doing instead is worthwhile and of benefit and true to your gifts.

Hustle and selfish pleasure will never bring real joy. Finding meaning in sacrifice, hard work and service, however, provides for a life rich in fundamental satisfaction.

Folks ask:

To work hard and achieve or to play hard and chill?

To work hard and be of great benefit, or to work less and find a way to be of benefit easily?

To play hard and be of benefit? To balance work and play?

For me, balance or imbalance, work or play are irrelevant.

Right Livelihood is where we find love in our work, work hard, take care of ourselves, and our mission—the underlying focus—is to be of benefit and find some joy in doing so.

As for missing out on play, it happens. Working hard takes focus and focus necessitates sacrificing attention to other things. The question to me is not whether we’re missing out or not, but whether we are walking a path of benefit to others, including oneself—whether we are truly serving this world in desperate need.

Anything worthwhile takes sacrifice. And anything worthwhile requires some joy, some deeper satisfaction or connection.

Anyone saying otherwise, as in the image above, hasn’t walked the path of right livelihood—a hard path where love joins work.

A path where, as a popular edit of the famous quote puts it,

“If you love what you do you won’t work a day in your life—but you’ll kinda work all the time.”