You Can Still Do Your Job, but Do You Have Enough Left for the Life You Built?

The Physiology of Ambition · Sep 16, 2026 · 1h

You know the “vacation”... You finally get away from work, sit down with a coffee, and then check your email anyway. You tell yourself it will only take a minute, because you would rather stay on top of things than come home to a mess.

Then you return from vacation feeling like you need another vacation.

I’ve done it, too.

It made me question the way we’ve been talking about work-life balance.

Balance assumes there is a fixed amount of energy to divide between work and everything else.

I’m more interested in work-life capacity: having enough available energy to succeed at work without using…