What happens when life gets monodimensional?

What happens when life gets mono-dimensional?

There has been particular emphasis on living a well-balanced life and meaningful life etc in recent times. What comes to mind naturally is that one should not be obsessed with any one aspect of his or her life, be it work, career, family, friends hobbies whatsoever.

But I truly wonder how wise such an advice truly is. Or rather, is it really wrong when one focuses too intensely on something? That Michelangelo took years to finish his Sistine Chapel paintings is perhaps proof that marvelous works that come with focus and passion. That Leonardo da Vinci would be best remembered as a painter, not as a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, architect, botanist, musician or writer tells us something about how "peaks of excellence" can perhaps be (humanely?) achieved in one field or so for any one individual.

If anything, Albert Einstein was undoubtedly an impressive physicist (not anything else), with his achievements shadowing that of his predecessors and contemporaries such as Galileo, Newton and Charles Darwin. It should not be surprising that the latter group of personalities presented an equally dazzling array of professions: naturalists, geologists, physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, but would perhaps become scientific legends for their contributions to astronomy, physics and the theory of evolution respectively. Copernicus, who would perhaps be best remembered for his work in challenging the age-old teachings on the workings of the Celestial realm, was a mathematician, physician, classical scholar, translator, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat, economist and astronomer. That he should make his mark in his "hobby" - astronomy - is telling that when passion mixes with interests, maybe it doesn't really matter if one knows nothing else much.