My favorite novelist is Haruki Murakami. After 30 years of writing fiction, he published a nonfiction book that explained his writing process and philosophy. One of the most interesting points was when Murakami discussed a choice he made at the beginning of his career.
I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing…
I felt that the indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person, but with an unspecified number of readers. As long as I got my day-to-day life set so that each work was an improvement over the last, then many of my readers would welcome whatever life I chose for myself.
We tend to read statements like that and immediately dismiss them as unrealistic, or perhaps even rude. How could someone choose to prioritize their relationships with countless people they had never met?
Another way to look at it: Murakami focused on what he would gain instead of what he would lose.
If you’ve ever come back tired from a vacation, if you’ve ever used the phrase working for the weekend, if you’ve ever wondered about the elusive life-work balance—maybe it’s time to think about ordering your life around what you actually want, and seeing what falls away.