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Comment by amirhirsch | Hacker News Reader

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amirhirsch·

balance: the perennial virtue of the under-achiever

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I read an article recently suggesting top-performers in the army tend to be happy.

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/top-performers-have-a-su...

While balance isn't required for happiness, I know many imbalanced, unhappy and underachieving people.

It was meant to be funny, not controversial! I'm sure the world is full of balanced, happy people, with both lives and achievements!

First, so the fuck what? Is it so wrong to have different goals than "rise up the corporate ladder and make stacks on stacks on stacks"? It is not morally wrong to prioritize different things.

Second, if we consider "achievement" to be measured by income I have far better work-life balance as a software engineer than the person who cleans my house, despite me making 10x what she makes. There doesn't appear to be some global correlation between working hard or long hours and pay.

This is a joke that doesn't land because there is a high likelihood that some here believe this.

It's interesting how different people view it differently. I don't agree with the joke in meaning, but when I read it, I assumed he was making a joke or being sarcastic and wasn't trying to offend anybody, whereas the first reply took it seriously.

The joke doesn't land because people feel both unbalanced and under-achieved and largely powerless to change it.

under-achiever seems like an odd word. Not everyone values “achievement” over everything else.

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