The Five Pillars Of Life

As you are all probably aware, everything I write about on this site comes from my own personal experience.

As I sat down to write this article about the five pillars of life, I paused.

“Wait a minute”, I thought. “This sounds suspiciously similar to something I may have read in the past on another site.”

The last thing I want to do is accidentally steal someone else’s ideas!

So, I took to Google and, sure enough, back in 2020 there was an article on The Art Of Manliness about building your life upon multiple pillars of support.

Since I have been a consistent reader of The Art Of Manliness for over a decade, it’s not surprising that some of their content is rattling around in my brain somewhere.

“Darn”, thought I. “I guess I’ll have to scrap this article.”

But scrapping the article didn’t sit right with me. After all, the reason I wanted to write this in the first place was to identify the pillars of life, which is not something the AOM article covers.

After all, I used this concept to great effect years before I ever read any variation of it on the internet. Let me explain…

I have struggled with anxiety for my entire life. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I was even able to put a name to it. I always thought I was just “stressed”.

I racked my brain constantly to try to figure out what was wrong with me. What I discovered was that, while certainly not a cure-all, I felt the best when I was giving attention to five specific areas of my life.

Keep in mind, these were defined by me when I was, like twenty-two years old.

Good Food, Good Beer, Relationships, Exercise, Singing.

The food and beer categories were because I was right out of college, and had little money. These categories were meant to remind myself to appreciate good food and drink when I could, as they have always brought me happiness.

The relationship category was for all relationships, including friendships. I would get squirrely when alone, so I made it a point to see important people when I could. It helped keep me grounded in reality.

The exercise category makes sense. I had a ton of anxiety and working out helped regulate it.

The singing category might sound weird, but I have always enjoyed singing a great deal. It always reduced my stress level and brought me positive attention from others.

I am no longer a twenty-two-year-old kid. So, what are the five pillars of life now, as a man with a wife and children? Surprisingly, they aren’t much different.

Marriage, Kids, Career, Exercise, Hobbies.

Marriage and Kids takes the place of the “Relationship” category from earlier. Hobbies takes the place of “Singing” and incorporates things like friendships. Career replaces the “Good Food/Beer” categories, since focusing on one’s career ensures access to those creature comforts.

Just like the AOM article states, all the pillars need to be tended to, as neglecting any one will cause it to crumble and fail. While that’s certainly true, what I found to be much more important (and less obvious) was that when I focused too much on one pillar, not only did the others fail, but the pillar I was focusing on failed, too!

Why is that?

Well, I believe that it’s due to not “refreshing” my mindset.

When I was too focused on one area of my life, I would naturally get fatigued. Without turning my attention to other things, I never gave myself a break.

It’s like when you’re staring at a work problem for ages, and decide to take a moment away from your computer. Often times you come back to your desk with a fresh perspective and ability to solve the problem.

If you spread out your energy across all five pillars of life, paradoxically, they all do better than if you focused solely on any one. Bouncing back and forth refreshes your mind each time, like an Etch A Sketch.

This echoes a sentiment I made in an article I wrote a while back about career lessons I learned way too late in life: if you commit to excellence in one area of your life you need to commit to excellence in ALL areas of your life.

When you tackle a large project, you naturally break it down into several categories. Think of life as one, large, never-ending project. Break it up into the five aforementioned categories and tackle each one simultaneously.