There are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.

Source: "How to make work-life balance work." TED Conference. May 2010. Conference Presentation. Additional Information: In this quote, from his TEDTalk delivered at TEDxSydney in 2010, author Nigel Marsh describes how the average person's lifestyle is out of balance, as it places too much emphasis on work,  material wealth, and status, and does not actually make the person happy. In this sense, our modern approach to work and career is absurd and detrimental to our well-being. After making this statement, Marsh then goes on to describe a life that has the ideal balance of work and play, and outlines how we can achieve it. Watch the full TEDTalk here: Nigel Marsh - How to Make Work-Life Balance Work