Superheroes Have No Balance
I love superheroes, pretty much always have. I’ve read thousands of comic books and seen more TV shows and movies dealing with people who dress up in tight clothing and fight other people dressed up in tight clothing. What I find most entertaining is the fact that the stories are written to be as realistic as possible given the unrealistic world they are based in. You believe that Batman was so driven by his parent’s death that his focus is only on preventing that from happening to someone else. So each night he patrols the city, looking for crime to stop. One thing I’ve always wondered is: when does he sleep? Read more »
Posted: July 22nd, 2008 under Balance.
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So the other day, I swing by my three year-old son’s Sunday School class to see how he is doing potty-training-wise. He is sitting at their little table with a few other classmates eating Goldfish crackers and drinking juice. His teacher points to a poster that is on the table that has different faces on it showing different emotions. She tells me that she pointed to Happy and asked Piers what makes him happy. “Daddy” was his reply. That will melt your heart. Of all the things in this little guy’s life, that day without me being around, he said I made him happy. 
One of my passions is games. Whether it is board games, video games, card games, role-playing games, or miniature games I truly enjoy playing them. Part of the reason is that it challenges my brain and I enjoy figuring out new things. My wife used to chuckle at me when I would be reading sometimes very lengthy rulebooks for entertainment. Along the way I became a game designer, writing books and articles creating new games or adding to existing ones. One of the interesting concepts of game design is the idea of game balance. That is each side needs an equal chance to win the game. I find that I’m often applying the concept of game balance to my real world life as well. 
We have a pretty regular routine at our house each night. The kids get ready for bed at the same time every night, we read them some books, tuck them in and then leave. They usually play or read in their room for a while and then fall asleep. On vacation, we could not keep the normal routine and since it was a vacation we let the kids stay up later than normal and overall just got rid of the normal schedule. It worked fine on vacation and the kids had fun but now we are back home and we need to return them back to their normal schedule, but we want to do it with a minimum of fuss. Ah, the joys of parenthood. 
There is a common axiom in business called the 80/20 rule. It means that in general, 80% of your X is caused by 20% of your Y. That is 80% of your revenue is generated by 20% of your customers or 80% of the work is performed by 20% of the people. While the numbers may not be accurate, the basic idea that a majority of something is usually caused by a minority of something else is accepted as fact. What is an interesting question to ask is can we apply this to our personal life?