Eventual consistency in distributed systems means a write on one node shows up everywhere else later. For a while, replicas disagree. Given time, they catch up. That's also how a lot of people who get hard things done actually live — not the version in self-help books.
Think about the like counter on Instagram. You don't care if a post's like count is off by a few hundred out of a million while databases sync in the background. It's better to load the feed fast than to wait for a perfect like count (on popular posts you'd be waiting a long time).
I find it helpful to think about my life this way, despite every self-help book screaming the opposite. We're told we have to balance everything we do – work, diet, fitness, sleep, friends – at all times. If you drop a ball for even a moment, you're failing.
What a terribly exhausting way to live.
Instead, treat your balance as an eventual consistency problem. Accept temporary extremes to actually get things done. Sometimes work completely consumes you. Sometimes a deadline keeps you up until 3AM for a week straight. Other times, you're completely unreachable and spending time with family and friends. That's okay. Work hard to play hard.
Nobody who ever did anything meaningful lived a perfectly balanced life while doing it. Do you think Olympic athletes remember to catch up with every friend they have every week? Or that unicorn startup founders reach a $1B valuation while carefully monitoring their screentime? No. They relentlessly obsess over one thing, let the rest of their life get a little messy, and fix the imbalances later down the line.
This is not a free pass to torch your health or ghost your friends forever. It's permission to go deep on the thing in front of you, let the rest get messy, and rebalance when the sprint ends. You don't need perfect balance today. You need to converge.