A friend of mine called me the other day to discuss his plans to leave his job and start a business in a year. I could feel his excitement, and supported his decision. But the truth is I didn’t really believe in his plan, and I don’t really think he did either. We’ve had this discussion before, many times, and nothing has really come of it. I realized I’ve also had the same conversation with myself, many times, over the last few years but always stopped short of doing it. The problem with the plans we made was they relied on one event that never happens: the eureka moment that tells you it’s time.
There are a lot of scary things in life..getting married, starting a business, having kid, buying a house, heck even getting a dog. These are all times where we can feel the fear inside of us, attempting to hold us back and keep us safe. Sometimes that fear says it’s not time yet (and sometimes it’s not), but the truth is it’s never the time. It will always be scary, it will always require a leap of faith to do any of these things. I look to my sister as living proof of this.
Andrea is really a great mother. She’s loving, she’s supportive, she takes amazing care of her 9 month old while continuing to take amazing care of herself (one of the more difficult and important parts of being a good parent…from what she tells me). She certainly doesn’t look and act like a person who wasn’t ready to be a mother, but she’ll tell you otherwise. Up to the point when she and her husband decided to have a baby they did not feel it was time. They still wanted to enjoy their pre-adulthood (Andrea classifies anyone who graduated from college but has not yet had a baby as a pre-adult), wanted to travel, to go out at night, to sleep in on weekends, to still just be with themselves. But they felt equally strong about entering a new phase of their life, the responsibility and excitement of parenthood. It didn’t feel like “the time,” but they did it anyway…and it ended up it was after all.
The more exciting and rewarding things in life, often look scary from the outside. My sister had to wonder “how could I, an accomplished pre-adult, possibly be a good mother?” Just as I wonder sometimes “how could I, also an accomplished pre-adult, possibly be ready to start my own business, a real business?” Well, the bad news is that if you’re waiting for the right time to take a big step, as I have, it will never come. The good news is whenever you do take that big step, the time will be right.
I don’t know how I stumbled on to this post, but it was really thought provoking for me. At first I wanted to get defensive, think about why she was wrong and point out that she had contradicted this post many times in the past both in one of her books and in other blog posts (as pointed out by several readers in the comments). Apparently she even ended one of her books with the statement: “People will choose to work because they love what they do. ” - Penelope Trunk, in ‘The end of work as we know it.’
But in the end I really enjoyed this post because it end challenged my beliefs, and expanded my perspective. Anyway instead of rewriting a blog post, I’m just going to copy from an email conversation I had with my friend on this post (note: these are from several emails, and I realize a lot of rambling):
It seems like there are a lot of people in the comments that felt really good after reading this post. It, at least momentarily, squashed all their doubts about their lives. They weren’t missing out on something great after all. Maybe they feel relieved because they can point to this and say: “Whew, see…it’s not my fault.” I feel like the strong reaction shows an underlying doubt. There is a part of them that still believes in this fairytale.
Why do such a high % of people in their 20’s believe in this notion, while a very low % in their 40s+ say that it is garbage and that “reality has set in.”
Maybe the reason why most people think this advice is BS is because they stopped thinking about what they loved the second “reality set in..” ie, bills. Dreams can’t pay bills, and paying bills requires you make money, and generally the most accepted way to make money is to get a job. Job takes up time and dreams are pushed aside, before long you don’t really know what you love but you know how to make money, and that can feel good too. Perhaps the key to finding what you love is to KEEP looking. Not waiting, but looking.
I think there are other issues at play here… Most don’t know what they really would love to do. Think about all the people who think they want to be entrepreneurs, movie stars, singers, actors…do you think that the would all LOVE to do these things? Or are most just looking at what others have and thinking that is something they would like to have. I would imagine that a lot of the commenters on that site fit in this category. Look at early stages of American idol…most of those people really believe they would like to be singers, but I’m willing to bet that only a very small percentage of them actually would love to sing. 99% of them are there because they want to get famous and rich.
maybe another issue is that people are too specific when looking to do what they love. They define things too tightly. For example, what my friend Jerry has discovered he loves to do connect with people at a very deep level (as he calls it: “connections of the heart.”) He’s had 3-4 careers in his life that he has loved, but they all have this underlying theme. But what if he had confused an activity that involves connections of the heart with “his calling?” What if he thought that what he loved to do was be an actor (without realizing that what he loved about acting was it allowed him to have connections of the heart with the characters and audience)…so he went out and tried to be an actor, and it didn’t work. Does this mean he can’t do what he loves? No, it means he was too narrow in his focus. Keep trying things that interest and excite you, or in Jerry’s case that appealed to his interest in connecting with people… you will probably end up in another position where you can be excited, and in fact end up doing what you love….
I agree with the notion that believing in and seeking “the perfect job,” is quite a heavy burden. It’s not going to get you anywhere. So sitting around and hoping to see the perfect job hit the classifieds for you will not ever amount to anything. I also do believe that no matter how much you love what you do, it will always have moments that feel like work. It’s never all happiness…life is always great for anyone, nor should it be. As my mom said: “You need contrast.” So I think people are mislead there as well.
I actually believe people are completely confused as to what doing what you love means. It doesn’t mean there is a job out there just waiting for you to snatch it. It doesn’t mean that everything you enjoy doing should and can be a job or career path for you. I It means you continually move towards, experiment with, try things that interest or excite you, and you follow those feelings to new things. You do things that make you nervous (in a safe, structured way…no drugs, etc). You do things without worrying about what they may or may lead to in the future, you just do them because they excite you.
I think this pursuit of purpose is very similar to choosing a spouse. You certainly can’t ever know beforehand who is “the one.” You have to get in there and spend time with them. You have to experiment. Some people are “lucky” and know what they want, and get it. Others try and try and try, always bailing because it’s never just right. And others still never really believe they can find “the one,” so the settle for the one who will settle for them. But the truth is there is no perfect spouse, no perfect relationship. It takes a good fit and hard work to make a great relationship. But if you love someone, deep down, you want to work on it, you want to make it the best it can be.
perhaps again the issue isn’t about the end result, about finding and doing that thing you love…it’s about the seeking. If you are willing to seek and continue to seek throughout your life, then I’m willing to bet you’ll have a lot more exciting days than boring ones. Doing a lot of experimenting, a lot of “seeking,” inevitably means you’ll try a lot of things that don’t work.
just like an athlete…they are never in good shape, it’s not a place you ever get…it’s always just in front of you. So they try new training techniques, new machines, new supplements, new routines, new diets..constantly tweaking…and finding those that don’t work, those that fail, that is what ultimately makes them better.
Perhaps the “secret” to life then is: fail big and often. Failing is aliveness. Failure is a teacher. Failure paves the way for growth, and growth is living. So maybe the goal isn’t to try and find what you love, maybe it’s to try lots of things you might.
Once, when I was about 9 or 10, my father told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it. I remember that precisely because it seemed so anomalous. It was like being told to use dry water. Whatever I thought he meant, I didn’t think he meant work could literally be fun—fun like playing. It took me years to grasp that.
I think I still struggle with this, even though I believe it in. I’ve only had flashes in my short work life where the work I was doing was actually fun, where I couldn’t believe that anyone, anywhere, could categorize it as “work.” I guess this is something that takes time to absorb and live… old habits and beliefs die hard.
By the time they reach an age to think about what they’d like to do, most kids have been thoroughly misled about the idea of loving one’s work. School has trained them to regard work as an unpleasant duty. Having a job is said to be even more onerous than schoolwork. And yet all the adults claim to like what they do. You can’t blame kids for thinking “I am not like these people; I am not suited to this world.”
Actually they’ve been told three lies: the stuff they’ve been taught to regard as work in school is not real work; grownup work is not (necessarily) worse than schoolwork; and many of the adults around them are lying when they say they like what they do.
I wonder if this is true? Do most people genuinely not like what they do? I realize that no matter what you do, there are always going to be parts you don’t like or get stressed over, or people you can’t stand, but I’m hopeful that we all have the possibility of spending most of our time doing something we generally enjoy. So what separates the few who do love what they do? How did they get there? I really like this:
It was not till I was in college that the idea of work finally broke free from the idea of making a living. Then the important question became not how to make money, but what to work on. Ideally these coincided, but some spectacular boundary cases (like Einstein in the patent office) proved they weren’t identical.
The definition of work was now to make some original contribution to the world, and in the process not to starve. But after the habit of so many years my idea of work still included a large component of pain. Work still seemed to require discipline, because only hard problems yielded grand results, and hard problems couldn’t literally be fun. Surely one had to force oneself to work on them.
If you think something’s supposed to hurt, you’re less likely to notice if you’re doing it wrong. That about sums up my experience of graduate school.
……..
Most people are doomed in childhood by accepting the axiom that work = pain. Those who escape this are nearly all lured onto the rocks by prestige or money. How many even discover something they love to work on? A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions.
I still struggle with this. I feel like anything great worth doing will come with quite a bit of pain. I feel like on some level that doing what you love is like getting your body in shape after a long break from exercise. It’s going to take discipline, it’s going to hurt, and you’re going to hate it some, if not a lot of the time, at least to start. But after you break through the habits and your muscles begin to build, things get easier. I can see this approach will not get me anywhere, or at least the places I’m trying to go. Perhaps part of my problem has been I’ve been pushing so hard on doors that are meant to be easily pulled open…pushing harder does not get me any closer to opening it. That reminds me of this:
It’s really hard to let go of what I’ve been taught, and what I’ve told myself. Part of finding what you love to do, is not pushing through the pain but instead noticing it and reacting to it. More good quotes:
How much are you supposed to like what you do? Unless you know that, you don’t know when to stop searching. And if, like most people, you underestimate it, you’ll tend to stop searching too early. You’ll end up doing something chosen for you by your parents, or the desire to make money, or prestige—or sheer inertia.
I struggle with this as well. As I’ve said, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that just felt so great, that felt like it was my “calling.” I’m not really looking for that because I don’t think I ever will. But I will give myself a pat on the back for continuing my search, seeking out new opportunities when the current one doesn’t at least feel right. Or as Paul later describes… I’ve never found something that I enjoyed enough that the concept of “spare time” seems mistaken. It seems that I continually put myself in work situations where I can’t wait to do something other than what I’m doing. Not exactly practicing what I preach. What you should do:
To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that’s pretty cool. This doesn’t mean you have to make something. If you learn how to hang glide, or to speak a foreign language fluently, that will be enough to make you say, for a while at least, wow, that’s pretty cool. What there has to be is a test.
What you should not do:
What you should not do, I think, is worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your friends. You shouldn’t worry about prestige. Prestige is the opinion of the rest of the world. When you can ask the opinions of people whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the opinions of people you don’t even know?
It’s really amazing how greatly this impacts people’s lives, including my own. How crazy is it that we could put ourselves in a position to do something we don’t like or hate, potentially for the rest of our lives, in hopes we look good to others? At the end of your life are you going to look back and say “Whew, I’m glad that I lived the way all those people thought I should?” I doubt it.
The other big force leading people astray is money. Money by itself is not that dangerous. When something pays well but is regarded with contempt, like telemarketing, or prostitution, or personal injury litigation, ambitious people aren’t tempted by it. That kind of work ends up being done by people who are “just trying to make a living.” (Tip: avoid any field whose practitioners say this.) The danger is when money is combined with prestige, as in, say, corporate law, or medicine. A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn’t thought much about what they really like.
The test of whether people love what they do is whether they’d do it even if they weren’t paid for it—even if they had to work at another job to make a living. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to do it for free, in their spare time, and take day jobs as waiters to support themselves?
This is something I think we’ve all heard at some point in our lives: “What would you do if you had 10 million dollars?” I think most people would say they would quit their jobs, retire to some beach house, and live happily ever after. We know this isn’t true. Spend some time and read about past lottery winners. They learn the hard way (yes, it’s hard) that money is not the answer. They often find themselves lost and completely unhappy. I think most people believe deep down there is some dollar amount that would make them happy for the rest of their lives. If they could just hit that, either through lottery winnings or their 401k or being an entrepreneur who sells their company, they think they will live happily ever after. These expectations are so high, that when some of the few actually hit this number they are usually overwhelmed and saddened. It’s hard not to think: “I made it, but is that all there is?”
This is why it makes so much sense to fill up your days doing something you enjoy, something you care about. Because if you can end the day generally feeling good about what you do, about your life, your loved ones, your path…then you can end the week feeling the same way, and then the month, and then the year, and then year after year..all feeling pretty good. You don’t need to hit the lottery or sell your company, because at the end of the day you feel good.
Finally, words of encouragement:
It’s hard to find work you love; it must be, if so few do. So don’t underestimate this task. And don’t feel bad if you haven’t succeeded yet. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you’re discontented, you’re a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial. If you’re surrounded by colleagues who claim to enjoy work that you find contemptible, odds are they’re lying to themselves. Not necessarily, but probably.
I guess I’m a step ahead, but that doesn’t mean I feel any closer getting somewhere. Whew, patience. Go read the article, it’s worth your time.
I loved this piece in yesterday’s WSJ about failure. I think we’ve all been inspired or excited by some of the many, many stories of people overcoming obstacles in their lives on their way to success. Thomas Edison’s 1,000 failed attempts at creating the light bulb is a famous one (”I didn’t fail 1,000 times,” he told a reporter. “The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”), but what really drives someone through these troubled times? Is it a grand vision? Confidence? The article says “self-efficacy.”:
Psychologists call it “self-efficacy,” the unshakable belief some people have that they have what it takes to succeed.
Self-efficacy it seems is different than self esteem:
Self-efficacy differs from self-esteem in that it’s a judgment of specific capabilities rather than a general feeling of self-worth. “It’s easy to have high self-esteem — just aim low,” says Prof. Bandura, who is still teaching at Stanford at age 82. On the other hand, he notes, there are people with high self-efficacy who “drive themselves hard but have low self-esteem because their performance always falls short of their high standards.”
I had to wonder, where does self-efficacy come from, how does one develop a strong sense of it:
In some cases it’s inborn optimism — akin to the kind of resilience that enables some children to emerge unscathed from extreme poverty, tragedy or abuse. Self-efficacy can also be acquired by mastering a task; by modeling the behavior of others who have succeeded; and from what Prof. Bandura calls “verbal persuasion” — getting effective encouragement that is tied to achievement, rather than empty praise.
Perhaps this is why we are all so interested in seeing, reading, hearing stories of people, especially “ordinary people,” who overcome great obstacles because we hope that somehow we can learn from what they’ve done, and apply it to our own lives. Bottom line is we all experience failures in our lives. Some see the failures as proof they are no good or their idea was all wrong,. While others take the failures as an opportunity to learn. I think I”ll opt for the latter.
More great stories from the article:
J.K. Rowling’s book about a boy wizard was rejected by 12 publishers before a small London house picked up “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” Decca Records turned down a contract with the Beatles, saying “We don’t like their sound.” Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor who said he “lacked imagination.” Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school varsity basketball team sophomore year.
And of course I couldn’t write about this without showing one of my favorite commercials of all time.
Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
But this morning it hit me: I don’t really know what this looks like or certainly not what this feels like. I’ve heard “follow your passion,” in about a million different ways, but the truth is this notion is really abstract for me. It’s like someone telling me “be a billionaire.” I might have some image in my head of what that may look like, and perhaps some ideas of what it may feel like, but ultimately I know almost nothing about living like a billionaire. The same is true for me when I hear people say “follow your passion.” I don’t know what that means, what that looks like, or where that is. So how do you get directions when you don’t know where you are going?
You get lost. I really want so badly for someone to sit me down and say “go there, do this,” but unfortunately this won’t work. It wouldn’t work for anyone. It reminds me a lot of the story my mom told me about learning to ride my bike. I tried to learn at a very early age, and I was determined to get it very quickly. I didn’t want to screw around with the process, I just wanted to ride. So after an hour or so of falling, I lost it. I screamed at my mom to just “tell me how to balance.” I felt that learning to balance was something you could be told how to do, as if my mom was holding the secret over me for her own enjoyment. That obviously was not the case. You have to feel your own way, fall a few (dozen) times, until it clicks.
The same is true for “finding what you love.” You can’t follow a recipe for success (although there is an enormous industry built on the premise that you can). There is no “one size” fits all here. But there are themes. I think you can read about, meet with, learn from those who apparently have found their way. I’m really interested in talking with and meeting more people who have “found what they love.” I know they can’t tell me how to do it, but perhaps I can learn a few tricks of their trade. This isn’t some ancient secret hidden from us all, this is something real people are doing everyday. I’m going to find my way, I figure I just might have to fall a few (dozen) times. It can’t hurt to talk to some people who already have their balance.
There was an article in the WSJ this morning about supporting loved ones when they find out they have cancer. I immediately had opinions on the article because I remember my own experience very clearly with my mom. I remember cleaning out my college apartment when she called me to give me the news, and I think my immediate reaction was somewhat selfish. I reacted in a way I thought was right for her, I put on the “you can do this, you can fight this,” hat. I was so absorbed in reassuring myself that I was completely unaware of what my mom needed at that moment. Now I certainly won’t beat myself up for that because it was a really difficult thing to go through, but I think the article brings awareness to an important issue: how to offer support in a way that works for the person with the difficult news, not in a way that works just for you.
From the WSJ article:
“Loved ones don’t know what to do, and they don’t want to make a terrible error,” says Marisa Weiss, an oncologist and founder of Breastcancer.org, a nonprofit organization. “This fear keeps people from doing anything.”
While that’s the worst mistake you can make, experts say, there are a number of other slip-ups. Well-meaning friends and family members often ask inappropriate questions, such as the patient’s prognosis. They offer theories on why their loved one got sick, give unsolicited advice or insist that “everything is going to be just fine.”
That was certainly the case for my mom. She chose to deal with cancer in a manner that shocked and maybe even frustrated a lot of people: She didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted to have life just go on, she wanted to more or less ignore its presence as much as possible. And she wanted everyone around her to do the same. She didn’t want to be a “sick person,” she just wanted to be her usual self. She didn’t want to go to support groups, she didn’t want to have people call her out of the blue to offer words of encouragement, she just wanted to feel normal. This approach included not fully knowing the details of her illness. She chose instead for the doctors to treat her as they saw fit, but to keep her in the dark. She not only wanted to feel normal, she wanted to maintain a very positive attitude. This really drove people crazy. Actually at times it even drove me crazy. “How can you not know what you’re up against,” some people would say. But that wasn’t their question to ask. It was my mom’s.
From my experience, the best advice:
In general, experts say, you should take your lead from the person who is sick. If she wants to talk about her illness, then listen. Don’t be afraid of emotions. “Being there, listening and being supportive is a powerful role,” Dr. Weiss says. “If the person feels comfortable crying in front of you, be honored, because you fulfilled a really important need.”
I broke that bit of advice many times. I once had a bunch of my mom’s friends send her letters of support. She was not happy about that to say the least. I missed what was most important to her in her fight…the feeling of normal. I struggled…how could she not want words of encouragement from so many that love her? Because normal life provided her the encouragement she wanted. Extra attention from others made her feel sick, more vulnerable. I didn’t understand then. I do now.
In retrospect I hold a tremendous amount of respect for my mom’s approach. It had to be SO hard to not know the details (especially for such an inquisitive person). The unknown is a scary thing, especially when it relates to your health. But there’s even more genius in her approach. Not just because it allowed her to stay positive, and not just because it empowered her mind to think she was healthier than she actually was, but because it was ultimately HER way of dealing with it. Not mine. Not Tom’s. Not her friends. Hers.
Dealing with bad news is hard enough, offer support to someone as they need it, not how you think you would.
Despite many attempts over the last few years of my life it seems like I’m more easily distracted. With growing reliance on my cell phone and email (and my email on my cell phone), it seems I have less and less moments where I’m really alone with my thoughts. Despite being aware of it, I generally respond immediately to the buzz of my Blackberry. My gmail is open literally all day, even though I am well aware that email is the ultimate distraction. Actually email may be my ultimate addiction. I love my google reader. I love my twitter. Basically, I’m overstimulated. Way overstimulated, to the point where I don’t really feel like anything I work on gets the time and attention it deserves.
I found this great blog post over at Information Arbitrage where he talks about the same thing (I feel the same way, except for the wife / kids part, I’m not quite there yet…):
If there is one thing I am, it’s overstimulated. Too many activities. Too many obligations. Too many e-mail. Too many social networks. Huge emphasis on my wife and two boys; coaching, playing, living, loving. Which leaves time for - recovery, maybe. Something has got to give. I love to read; I don’t read enough. I love to write; I don’t write enough. I love art; I don’t see enough of that, either. I love meeting interesting people; I do some of that but would enjoy spending more time with really cool people I can learn from. Bottom line: my attention is very broadly scattered and I hold it all together (most of the time), but I feel like I should be happier and more satisfied given my tremendous effort in all areas.
This, especially in tech savvy crowd, is very common. I realized yesterday in my computer / email sabbath that during the week, I have less than 10 minutes a day in silence (and this 10 minutes is HARD..I’m working on it Jerry). The rest of the time my brain is flooded with information. Constantly. WSJ, phone calls, blogs, phone calls, twitters, IM’s, occasional meetings, the occasional book and emails. Lots and lots of emails. Does any of this stuff actually do anything to improve my life, to move me closer to my life’s goals? It don’t think so. So how can get my brain / thoughts back?
I tried being more organized with my tasks and time. I struggled. I felt like my todo list was more a running tally of stuff I thought I needed to do a few days ago. I tried the GTD system hoping for that zen like state of productivity and concentration, but realized that adding more systems to my life only meant more distractions. I am still very reactive in my days. Yes I set out with goals for each day, but unfortunately my email flow dictates what needs to be done most of the time. I can’t help but react to the buzz of a new message. Living this way (for me at least) seems to be the equivalent of running on the treadmill. It burns my energy, it wears me down, but at the end of the day I didn’t get too far.
I need to make some changes. I need to limit the email flow. I need to set aside time, at least a little time each day, where I am allowed to just think (walking the dog is the perfect time for this). I need to limit my google reader and twitter exposure to certain times of the day. Bottom line: I need to set some boundaries for these many distractions. I need to set my brain free again. After my break yesterday, where my brain felt so clear, I know it is the right thing to do. Perhaps the real secret to success in the information era is not to gather the most information, but to know how to shut it off.
I finally was able to listen to this podcast on love as recommended to me by my friend Jerry. It’s really a fascinating episode (the podcast in general is great). The most interesting quote from this show (which sort of confirms my thoughts from the other day):
“Psychologists say that you can only stay in love for 18 months. That’s the limit. After that it becomes something else: admiration, respect, etc. It becomes something else.”
That is the chemical that kicks off that puppy love we all really enjoy only lasts for 18 months or so. From there it is our responsibility to keep growing the relationship.
Ok I’ll admit the Warren Buffett posts are probably getting a little old, unfortunately fascination of the moment. There are many reasons to admire and respect a man like Warren Buffett (the man is the self made richest person on the planet and he did give away more than 85% of his net worth to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation), but the thing I admire most about him is that he’s one of those few who found and followed their passion. Or to put it into Warren’s words, he “tap dances to work everyday.”It may be a pipe dream but somewhere in the last 3 years of my life, I’ve convinced myself that there is some sort of path in life I can take that will “click” for me. I don’t want to come across sounding mystical, like there’s some powerful force guiding me towards “my thing,” because I don’t believe that. I just believe that we can find work that touches who we are at the deepest level, work that energizes us, and pulls out the most amazing parts of our being. This is the work that you would probably do for free, but ironically the one where you have the most financial opportunity. This seems to be the case for Warren Buffett. It has never been about money or fame for him. He just was fortunate to discover early on that everything about investing clicked with who he is. A quote from a class discussion Buffett with some students at Emory:
I enjoy what I do, I tap dance to work every day. I work with people I love, doing what I love. The only thing I would pay to get rid of is firing people. I spend my time thinking about the future, not the past. The future is exciting. As Bertrand Russell says, “Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.” I won the ovarian lottery the day I was born and so did all of you. We’re all successful, intelligent, educated. To focus on what you don’t have is a terrible mistake. With the gifts all of us have, if you are unhappy, it’s your own fault.
I’m amazed by his gratitude for his life. You don’t have to be a billionaire by the way to be so lucky (won the ovarian lottery…great). Another great quote showing his humility and gratitude:
I had nothing to do with my own success. My father was a securities broker and after the Great Crash, he had no one to call. Consequently, I was born in 1930 in the United States during the time of one of the greatest capital markets. I was born with the wiring for capital asset allocation. I had the right wiring at the right time. Temperament is a large part of my wiring. I was naturally good at it, and I used some feedback to develop it better. There is nothing to be arrogant about. Gates says if I had been born earlier, I would’ve been some animal’s lunch. I can’t run, I can’t climb. I’d be talking about allocating capital and the animal would think, “Those are the kind that taste the best.”
I also love this quote:
“I have so much fun that it’s not work. I get to do what I want, where I want – on a boat, wherever.”
It sounds to me that Buffett would agree with the notion that the best investment you could ultimately make is in yourself. Take the time and spend the money to really find the path that works for you. It may take a few stops and starts, but the pursuit is worth it.
I had a long talk with my sister this morning about relationships and it reminded me of something my Mom used to tell me: relationships (of all kinds) take work. I’m amazed really at how easily people forget this (myself definitely included). Expecting a relationship, whether between you and your significant other or your friend or sibling or children, to just be great all the time without any effort is crazy. It’s the same as expecting to be in tip top shape physically without ever going to the gym. It just doesn’t happen. Yes, some people are more naturally gifted and can stay more physically fit without any work just as some relationships just naturally click better than others, but those are the exception and not the rule.
I consider myself lucky to have an amazing girl like Julie in my life, and we do get along very well. Actually I think we have a pretty good relationship. It is not perfect by any measure, but I the foundation is good..we love each other and we like to be around each other. I just realized recently that life had done its part to dull things for us. It’s not that things got worse, it’s just that we stopped putting effort into the relationship. I try to spend at least an hour a day on my body at the gym, but recently I have not even spent that much time deepening my relationship with her. Now we both are very busy, and it is hard when we finally connect around 9pm after a long day to do much other than talk a little and watch some tv. I suspect this is the case for lots of couples, and I can only imagine it gets more difficult when you have kids. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why we have recently felt a little distant, why things don’t feel like they did when we first got together. It’s not because we don’t care for each other, and it’s not because we don’t work well together, it’s because we’re not putting in any effort. Relationships, good ones, take work (movies are wrong).
If you’re spending more time on your blackberry writing emails than you are talking with your significant other, it’s only a matter of time before things “don’t feel like they used to.” I’m not saying you have to give up everything else in your life, I’m just saying you don’t expect to get washboard abs by avoiding the gym so why do you expect your relationships to just be great without any effort?
How do you start working on it? I’m not sure exactly, but talking is a pretty good place to start. Ask them what’s on their mind, what’s going on their life, what they like, what they want from the relationship…and then see where it goes from there.
I know this is a subject most people don’t like to talk about (guys especially), and I think that’s the problem. It was on my mind, so I posted it…
Image via Wikipedia
