Work and life

The greatest and the clearest advice on work-life balance that I ever got, came from a senior manager at a client location once.

This is what he said, "If ever there is a choice in front of you between life and work, consider this - imagine, God forbid, you get run over by a truck on your way out of work today, your company can probably find a replacement for you within days. Not your family."

The fundamentals

You can solve most problems associated with a system if you understand the fundamentals of how it works.

A programmer who knows how each line of his code really works, can crack a bug by simply reading over the code he wrote.
A doctor who knows how a wound is formed, can heal it in weeks.
A bowler who knows how reverse swing really works, can produce it at will. (okay he may need some luck too:))

I'm guessing, life, works pretty much the same way; if you are strong on the fundamentals, there probably is no unsolvable problem.