“Life” represents the entirety of our existence and each of us has a limited quantity determined by our actions. Therefore, we must each balance and prioritize what we decide to include in our life.

“Work”, as a general term, represents performing the actions required to extend the quantity and enhance the quality of our life. In today’s division of labor society this usually means performing an excess of some specialized task and trading, by means of currency, for other values. The satisfaction that comes from a job well done makes up an important part of our self esteem and therefore work can be an end in itself as well as a means to life. That’s a fancy way of saying some people really love their job!

“Personal Life” represents values in our life that are not related to work. However, more work might give you the means to more of these things, so I do not see it as the division of a fixed quantity.

That being said, I understand that it is possible to work too much. The Apollo guys may have approached this threshold, but then again they were basically fighting the Cold War and protecting all of our lives. My concern is that in trying to avoid some of their troubles we’ll swing too far in the other direction.