I was recently chatting with some friends about work / life balance and also having work aligned with one’s values. I ended up drawing a pyramid on the whiteboard that felt a bit like Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs. Here were the levels:

  • Working all the time to survive
  • Work / life balance - time for a life but no meaning from work
  • Work / life integration - work is aligned with ones values / one enjoys work
  • Work / life / world integration - you’re able to leverge your time spent working to impact the world in a big way, aligned with your values

We noted that we were extremely fortunate be toward the good end of the hierarchy but that many people were trapped in the first two stages. Many people I know are at least trying to hit that highest stage - which probably lines up with Maslow’s self-actualization. Hopefully as automation creates more abundance, we’ll be able to use something like basic income to empower more people to spend more of their time on things that change the world in ways aligned with their values.