Living A Life That Lasts
How to Find Balance Amidst Modern Life's Demands
In today’s world, we’re told to go “all in”—on career, money, and hustle.
Yet, the modern lifestyle is unrelenting in its demands.
You’re expected to provide, parent, partner, rest, reflect, and somehow, thrive —finding meaning amidst it all.
This dilemma often means that people give everything to one thing and forfeit everything else that matters. Such an exchange leaves you disappointed, empty, and without meaning.
What if you could build a life that embraces the tension between competing priorities?
What if there were a way to find balance in the face of the modern world’s instability?
You don’t have to pay the price for prioritizing single-minded pursuits.
True fulfillment doesn’t come from choosing one thing over another. It comes from choosing to integrate them all through the courageous quest for balance.
Today’s YOU Not Me Letter will explore how selflessness, intentionality, and integration can help you live a life that lasts, with purpose and balance in every area of your life, without compromise.
The Singular Focus Sacrifice
Culture calls you to embrace sacrifice at any cost, all in the name of success. In some sense, any form of success requires sacrifice. But, what you choose to sacrifice matters more than the success that comes.
The world makes three common sacrifices in the name of success.
1. Career Over Relationships
You’re taught to hustle. Grind. To treat your family as a distraction. To believe that your loved ones will just understand.
Take Alex Hormozi, one of today’s leading business voices. He champions 14-hour work days, minimal to no vacation, and minimal time spent with family, all in the pursuit of business success.
While Hormozi’s drive, innovation, success, and vision speak for themselves, one must wonder — at what cost?
Hormozi said, “If you want a better husband, get used to seeing him less. Better husbands are busier husbands.”
However, this mindset prizes personal achievement over people.
In the long run, this will deteriorate your relationships and make your success less meaningful and memorable.
2. Money Over Meaning
Many chase profit at the expense of integrity.
They trade their long-term values for short-term gains.
However, they fail to realize that they pay a much higher price when they forfeit their character and reputation.
Trust is gained in drops, but lost in buckets.
Everything comes at a cost. Never pay more than you can afford to. Never fall for fool’s gold.
Self-justifying over a foolish decision only leads to more. Soon, you will no longer recognize yourself.
3. Self Over Service
The world encourages you to build yourself, your brand, and your goals—even if it means manipulating relationships to get there.
The end justifies the means, as long as the end serves you and your interests.
However, selfish ambition turns every relationship into a transaction.
It exhausts you, requiring perfect performance, constant calculation, and masterful manipulation.
A YOU Not Me Mindset sees every interaction as an opportunity to create unity.
It transforms your view of success, seeing lifting others as more meaningful than walking over them to win.
Jesus himself questioned the great exchange that many make.
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)
The Modern Renaissance Life
The Renaissance men of the past embodied lives of depth and breadth. Rather than specialists, they were generalists—artists, philosophers, physicists, and writers. Men like Leon Battista Alberti believed, “a man can do all things,” in the sense of the breadth of his achievements, “if he will.”
Today’s Renaissance man seeks not to master every field and discipline, but rather to integrate what matters most:
Grounded in self-awareness
→ They recognize their responsibilities and know their values.
Courageous enough to say no
→ They understand that good opportunities can create bad long-term outcomes if they cost something in other areas of life. They protect these areas by saying no with wisdom.
Wise enough to build and balance
→ They pursue their passions without compromising their roles and responsibilities to family, friends, and rest.
You can have ambition and remain relational.
You can earn a living and live with integrity.
You can serve others and still grow yourself.
You can choose to live a life that lasts.
That’s what it means to live YOU Not Me.
Three Principles to Reclaim Balance
Prioritize Purpose
Ask yourself who you want to become
→ In your relationships
→ In your parenting
→ In your marriage
→ In your career
→ In your faith
Purpose aligns the demands of your career, the needs of your relationships, and the necessity of service towards everyone you meet.
When you begin with purpose, you will ask yourself, “Who do I want to become while I build?”
Your answer to that question determines whether you retain your integrity or compromise in the name of fleeting achievement.
Proper Priorities
Going all-in on one thing demands constant intensity. Balance demands disciplined consistency.
Many people set goals. Few set boundaries.
What matters most? Establish that first. Then, work backwards from there to build your schedule for each day and week.
Proper priorities and restful rhythms promote longevity in all areas of life.
→ Wake up early to exercise or enjoy your hobbies.
→ Book regular check-ins with your spouse, kids, and friends.
→ Create intentional mornings. Start with time to reflect before work.
→ Keep the Sabbath. Choose to rest. Commit to a screen-free weekend.
Powerful Perspective
You can choose to be others-oriented, not self-obsessed.
Balance isn’t just about you and your benefits.
When you choose balance, it enables you to serve others better.
Living a life of balance brings stability to those around you.
Your presence gives the gift of significance, security, and peace.
The YOU Not Me mindset reframes your daily choices according to priorities.
“How can I love best at work? At home? In my community?”
Balance In Practice
Before this week’s Open Championship, Scottie Scheffler, the #1 golfer in the world, surprised media members with his perspective on winning and achievement.
" I think it's kind of funny," Scheffler began. "It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for a few minutes. I literally worked my entire life to become good at golf, to have an opportunity to win that tournament. And you win it, you celebrate. You get to hug your family. It's such an amazing moment. And then it's like, ok, now what are we going to eat for dinner?”
Scheffler continued, “This is not a fulfilling life. It's fulfilling from a sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart. There are a lot of people who make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life. And then you get there, then all of a sudden you get to number one in the world, and they're, like, what's the point?
Scheffler underscores the essence of balance — dying a deliberate death and refusing to sacrifice what matters for fleeting feelings.
Another example?
Zone 2 Running.
When you run in a Zone 2 heart rate, it forces you to slow down.
When your heart rate starts to rise, you have to drop the pace. You must run with control. You have to embrace patience and discipline.
It feels like you’re missing out on gains. You want to push harder. You want to prove yourself. You want to go for more.
Here’s the catch.
The slower pace of Zone 2 training forms your foundation. The monotony deepens discipline.
Unless a runner spends the majority of their time in Zone 2 doing low-intensity work, their high-intensity efforts won’t stick.
In life, it looks like choosing a slow and steady climb in your career to remain faithful to your family.
It will require you to turn down a promising financial opportunity with questionable morals so you avoid compromising your faith.
It might not impress most people, but you don’t live for them.
It creates a life that lasts.
If you choose a life of balance, you might miss out on making more money or attracting more applause in the short term.
The reward? You keep what matters most in the long run.
Jesus commanded, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
Let that sink in...He will provide all that you need. How would your life look if you believed this? Why would you white-knuckle life and grasp after the outcomes you think you need if he knows and supplies your every need?
What About You?
Where in your life are you going “all in”… at the cost of everything else?
This week, take time to reflect:
What do I value most right now?
What am I sacrificing without realizing it?
What rhythms can I restore to bring balance back?
With intentionality and selflessness, you can live a life that integrates what matters—without compromising what lasts.