Reaping the benefits
Fast forward 30 years and you will still find me leading an unbalanced but joyful and fulfilling life. People often ask me how I was able to achieve so much (authoring several hundred scientific publications; publishing 13 books; receiving dozens of grants; editing 3 scientific journals; founding an international schizophrenia society; assuming many leadership positions, including becoming a department chair at 2 universities and being elected to the presidency of several associations; lecturing around the world and making hundreds of scientific presentations at national and international conferences; seeing thousands of patients; teaching, supervising, and mentoring countless medical students, psychiatric residents, and young faculty members; and creating a nonprofit foundation [CURESZ.org] with a former patient who recovered completely after 5 years of home classes and treatment-refractory command hallucinations who then graduated from college with honors in molecular biology after I prescribed clozapine to “cure” her from what was deemed a hopeless and irreversible mental disability1). In all, thanks to my unbalanced life, I have achieved 12 moonshots and each is a major achievement of which I am proud.
My answer to those who ask me how I did all that is simple: I have strategically led an unbalanced life, enjoying every minute of it, and reaping the fruits of my labor. I do not waste an inordinate amount of time watching TV or participating in social media like many others might. And more importantly, despite this unbalanced life, I have been married to my college sweetheart for several decades and have a son and a daughter who are very high achievers and make me proud. I do budget time to regularly take my children and grandchildren on family vacations to exotic locations. I have dinner with my family every night. I am very happy with this so-called unbalanced life. I have received numerous awards and recognitions for my accomplishments, including the Distinguished Scholar Award (the highest academic recognition at The Ohio State University), the coveted Stanley Dean Award for research into schizophrenia from the American College of Psychiatrists, 4 Golden Apple Teaching Awards, and the Daniel Drake Medal, the highest honor that the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine bestows on a faculty member. (Dr. Drake founded the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine 200 years ago, a major moonshot, and among his many accomplishments, he also established the first psychiatric hospital in Ohio, another consequential moonshot. I am sure he led a very productive, unbalanced life, and that is why he is still remembered and revered 200 years later.)
It is said that at the height of his prominence 90 years ago, Sigmund Freud was asked, “What is life all about?” He responded with 2 words: “Liebe und arbeit” (love and work). Importantly, he did not specify which proportions those 2 major functions should occupy in one’s life. It was left up to each individual to make that choice. In the constitution of our country, that freedom of choice is the secret sauce of “the pursuit of happiness.”