Ever heard the analogy about juggling glass balls and rubber balls?
The idea is that life is a juggling act. Some balls, if dropped, bounce back. Others shatter.
It’s one of my favourite ways to think about priorities, capacity, and the stories we tell ourselves about what can “wait until later.”
The analogy is often attributed to Brian Dyson, former Coca-Cola CEO, who once described work as a rubber ball, while family, health, friends, and spirit were glass. The message being: work can recover. Some other things are harder to repair once neglected for too long.
I think there’s wisdom in that, especially in a culture that rewards over-functioning and quietly celebrates people for sacrificing themselves in the name of productivity. Many of us have absorbed the idea that pushing through exhaustion is admirable, that being constantly available is a sign of commitment, and that our value is tied to how much we can carry without dropping anything. The glass and rubber ball analogy offers a reminder that not everything in life can or should be treated equally.
But I also think the analogy becomes much more complicated once you apply it to real people with real lives. Because the truth is that not everyone is juggling the same things, and not everyone can afford to drop the same ball.
When Work Doesn’t Feel Like Rubber
For some people, work genuinely is a rubber ball. Losing a job would be stressful and upsetting, but not catastrophic. They have financial stability, savings, strong support systems, flexibility, or a sense of identity that extends beyond what they do for a living. Work matters, of course, but it doesn’t feel like the single thread holding the rest of life together.
For others, work feels much more fragile. A lost job might mean financial instability, loss of healthcare, loss of routine, loss of community, or loss of safety. For some people, work isn’t just work. It’s structure. It’s identity. It’s proof of worth. It’s the thing keeping everything else afloat. And when that’s true, it makes sense that work wouldn’t feel remotely “rubber” at all.
This is part of why overly simplistic conversations about priorities can sometimes feel frustrating or disconnected from reality. It’s easy to say “family comes first” or “just set better boundaries” when your circumstances allow for that. It’s much harder when dropping a particular ball carries consequences that feel genuinely threatening. Context matters. Privilege matters. Survival matters. Not everyone has the same margin for error.
That’s why I often invite clients to think less about someone else’s hierarchy of priorities and more about their own. Because our glass and rubber balls are deeply personal, and they often shift throughout different seasons of life. The things that feel manageable at one point in time may become fragile later. A person recovering from illness, grief, burnout, divorce, caregiving, or financial stress may have a very different relationship to capacity than they once did.
The Balls We Assume Will Keep Bouncing
One of the things I notice often in therapy is how many people treat themselves like a rubber ball. Their health, emotional wellbeing, nervous system, relationships, and capacity are expected to endlessly bounce back no matter how much pressure they’re under. They assume they can keep pushing indefinitely because technically, they still can. They’re functioning. They’re productive. They’re meeting deadlines, replying to emails, taking care of other people, and showing up where they need to show up. So they tell themselves they’re fine.
Until suddenly they’re not.
Sometimes the body eventually refuses to cooperate. Sometimes anxiety becomes impossible to ignore. Sometimes burnout stops feeling like “stress” and starts feeling like numbness, resentment, exhaustion, cynicism, or a complete disconnection from yourself. And often, underneath all of it, there’s grief. Grief over realizing that something fragile has been treated as though it were indestructible for far too long.
Relationships can quietly become glass in the same way. People assume their marriage will survive endless leftovers. That friendships will tolerate years of postponement. That children will understand perpetual absence. That they’ll reconnect with themselves “once things calm down.” But life has a way of revealing what needed care much earlier.
None of this means people are selfish, failing, or bad at priorities. Most of the time, they’re simply doing the best they can within the realities of their lives. They are responding to pressure, responsibility, fear, ambition, financial need, caregiving demands, or survival. But awareness still matters. Because if we never stop long enough to honestly assess what’s becoming fragile, we risk waiting until something breaks before acknowledging that it mattered.
The Goal Isn’t Perfect Balance
I don’t think the goal is perfect balance. Human lives are not balanced all the time. There will be seasons where work requires more from you, seasons where caregiving takes over, seasons where survival itself becomes the focus. The goal is not to flawlessly protect every important thing at once.
The goal is awareness. Awareness of what actually matters to you. Awareness of your limits. Awareness of the cost of continuously overriding yourself. Awareness that some things in your life may be more fragile than you’ve allowed yourself to admit.
Because sometimes the most important realization isn’t identifying which balls are glass and which are rubber.
It’s recognizing that you’ve been treating something as though it will endlessly bounce back…when deep down, you already know it won’t.
