Background Worldview Categories of Balance
Categories of Balance: Four Plus More
| I. | The Big Four |
| II. | Interrelating the Big Four |
| III. | Describing Categories, Sub- and Sub-subcategories |
| A. | The Four Categories plus Subcategories |
| B. | Growth |
| C. | Love |
| D. | Play |
| E. | Creativity |
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II. Interrelating the Big Four
| A. | Interrelating Growth and Love |
| B. | Interrelating Play and Creativity |
| C. | Increasing the Involvement of All Four |
| D. | Making Everything Play! |
| E. | Celebrating the Overlap |
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III. Describing and Interrelating Categories, Sub- and Sub-subcategories
| A. | Sub- and Sub-subcategories |
| B. | Categories, Sub- and Sub-subcategories Described |
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I. The Big Four
A. The Four Categories plus Subcategories
In recent years, I've identified four, broad areas of human life that I imagine will, when balanced, help me (and any person) to live in a joyfully fulfilling way. And I crave meeting my need for balance! 
I'm hoping that you will bear in mind that I don't intend these to serve as mutually exclusive or jointly exhaustive categories. In countless ways, each of these four areas of life overlaps with each of the others. Even so, I find it helps me to classify things this way.
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Using my classification system, I use the word Growth to name everything that's involved in directly benefiting oneself or in improving one's life. So this category includes any sort of health, wellness or self-improvement activity. Examples that fit in this category could include continuing education, exercise, sound nutritional practices, and so on. Psychologically, Growth activities often seem "self-focused."
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With the word Love I refer to the whole spectrum of interpersonal relationships.
In my worldview, it's helpful and satisfying to cultivate a fundamental, universal love and compassion for human beings. On this foundation I endeavor to build all my interpersonal relationships, including those that I pursue with those whom I hardly know, such as a clerk in a store's check out lane.
In the Love category I also include my relationships with people whom I know intimately, and about whom I care in a deeply personal way - such as my wife, Cherita, and our daughter, Aliana. Psychologically, Love activities often seem "other-focused."
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With the word Play I refer to a broad category that includes the whole spectrum of recreational activities - including all things that human beings engage in primarily for "fun." For example, playing a board game with family members would qualify as a form of Play. I also include all artistic appreciation - for example, reading a novel, watching a movie, listening to music - as falling within the Play category. Psychologically, Play activities often seem as if they are done "for their own sake" - as "ends in themselves."
In a sense that I explore in later sections, I also want to make all my actions as playful as I can.
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The word Creativity for me captures the whole range of activities that people pursue for the sake of achieving something else.
This includes such activities as a "day job" in connection with which a person receives a salary, a career that a person pursues, and homemaking.
This category also includes the wider range of creative activity in which individuals engage. If a person created poetry, for example, the process of creating it would qualify as Creativity - even if the process of enjoying the result would qualify as Play.
Psychologically, Creativity activities often seem as if they are done "for the sake of something else" - as "means to ends."
Even so, in the moment, I like to make such means-directed action thoroughly playful, enjoyable in itself, and free of any association with a sense of "duty" or "obligation."
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II. Interrelating the Big Four
A. Interrelating Growth and Love
These categories relate to one another in ways in which I'm interested. For example, Growth activities often involve a focus on oneself, whereas Love activities often involve a focus on other people. In my experience and judgment, striking a balance between these two types of activity contributes to both personal and interpersonal fulfillment.
Even so, I passionately wish to emphasize another respect in which these categories overlap. Although on this site and in the context of these categories I use Love to focus on interpersonal relationships, I want it clear that I treasure each individual's need to also cultivate passionate love for the self. As I've indicated in my Affirmation,
actions that benefit self and actions that benefit others exist in harmony. And only by caring passionately for the needs of the self can we ever hope to create the robust foundation from which we can effectively care compassionately for the needs of others.
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B. Interrelating Play and Creativity
Similarly, Play and Creativity complement one another. Not only do I imagine that human beings will satisfy their needs by engaging in plenty of Creativity that's aimed at creating and achieving values. I'm also convinced that human beings will satisfy their needs most fully by enjoying and celebrating the values that they've discovered or invented through Play.
Again, I don't claim that any specific human activity will easily fit into only one of these four categories. For example, a person's Creativity may also (hopefully!) involve satisfying relationships with one's co-inventors and clients, even if only in the form of fondness (broadly speaking, Love). Also optimally, Creativity may also (and hopefully will) involve a lighthearted delight in what one does while one does it (Play) and opportunities for learning and mastering new skills (Growth).
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C. Increasing the Involvement of All Four
I even think that it can help to find ways to take an activity that I classify as fitting into one of these four categories, and to endeavor to increase the presence in that activity of the other three aspects. For example, a person might benefit from making his or her Creativity involve more Growth, Love and Play.
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More broadly, though, I resonate with Marshall Rosenberg's recommendation (which he attributes to Joseph Campbell): "don't do anything that isn't play." Or, to put into my own, positive terms: even if we are Growing, Inventing or Loving, let's only play!
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So I recognize and even take pleasure in the presence of so much overlap between these categories. Even given their overlapping nature, I've found that thinking in terms of them helps me to balance life's various activities with one another. I often find it helpful to ask myself: "Into which category does activity x most essentially seem to fit?"
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III. Describing Categories, Sub- and Sub-subcategories
In addition to the four major categories, I've also added subcategories and even some sub-subcategories. Some of these are specific to my own life. I've organized these with respect to the major categories as follows.
GROWTH
- CC (Communicating Compassionately)
- Fitness
- What's New
LOVE
Church
Family
Friends
CREATIVITY
Homemaking
Homeschool
Website
Writing
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
PLAY
Art
Literature
Movies
Music
Games
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B. Categories, Sub- and Sub-subcategories Described
In the following section, I provide descriptions of each category, subcategory and sub-subcategory. As with my four, major categories, these often overlap.
GROWTH: With this category, I focus on what I do to directly benefit myself.
CC (Communicating Compassionately): With this subcategory I focus on my growing understanding and practice of the process of Communicating Compassionately (a.k.a. Communicating with Compassion a.k.a. Communicating Across Differences), which draws inspiration and understanding especially from Marshall Rosenberg's process of Nonviolent Communication.
Fitness: With this subcategory, I focus on the nutritional and exercise activity in which I engage to promote my physical health.
Reading: With this subcategory, I focus on the reading I do to promote my learning.
What's New: With this subcategory I focus on "journalistic" consideration of current events in my life.
LOVE: With this category, I focus on the whole spectrum of my interpersonal relationships. Psychologically, Love activities often seem "other-focused." Even so, it's crucial to me that my Love activities remain fulfilling for me, as well.
Church: With this subcategory I focus on my participation in Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist (CCUU).
Family: With this subcategory I focus on my interactions with the Axel family.
Friends: With this subcategory I focus on my interactions with my friends.
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CREATIVITY: With this category, I focus on the whole range of what I do to achieve something else. I classify these activities as "means to ends" but want to ensure that they also are "ends in themselves."
Homemaking:
- With this subcategory I focus on the homemaking (much of which others often also call "house work") that I do to satisfy my need to contribute - in this case, by contributing to my family.
Homeschool: With this subcategory I focus on my homeschooling efforts with Aliana.
Website: With this subcategory I focus on new developments on my Living Action web site.
Writing: With this subcategory I focus on the writing that I do.
Fiction: With this sub-subcategory I focus on the fiction writing that I do.
Nonfiction: With this sub-subcategory I focus on the nonfiction writing that I do.
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PLAY: With this category, I focus on my spectrum of recreational activities - including all things that I do primarily for "fun" which I do "for their own sake" as "ends in themselves." These can also end up being "means to additional ends," as well.
Art: With this subcategory I focus on any form of what I classify as "art" to which I turn for play and rejuvenation.
Literature: With this sub-subcategory I focus on the stories that I enjoy reading.
Movies: With this sub-subcategory I focus on movies that I enjoy experiencing.
Music: With this sub-subcategory I focus on the music to which I enjoy listening.
Games: With this subcategory I focus on the games I play for fun.
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