This article was co-authored with Jeff Goins.

Most of us struggle at some point to figure out our calling in life. We lose interest in our job, or get disillusioned with our career, and we wonder what work we were really meant to do. Jeff Goins once felt that way, but after he found his calling, his writing career and his business took off.

Jeff is the author of the new book The Art of Work, in which he profiles individuals who have abandoned the status quo and made changes to live a life that matters with true passion and purpose. He’s a great writer and teacher and it’s a privilege to share this piece to you.

Enter Jeff.

The Work-Life Balance Lesson We Learn from Stephen King’s Desk

At the pinnacle of his success, and in the depths of an addiction, Stephen King bought a desk.

It was “the sort of massive oak slab that would dominate a room,” something he had always dreamed of. He placed the prized possession in the middle of his study where he tirelessly went to work every day—wasted and drunk and alienated from his family.

Due to an intervention by his family, King got sober and got rid of that huge desk, replacing it with a smaller one, which he put in the corner of his office instead of in the center of the room. His kids would come up to the office—now more a living room than a retreat center—to watch sports games and movies. Often, he would join them, grabbing a slice of pizza and watching the game for a while.

Years later in his memoir On Writing, King shared a lesson he learned from this tale of two desks. At the end of his struggle with an addiction that nearly cost him his family, he concluded that “life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”