I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.
… I do not remember my graduation speaker. Just as 20, 30 years from now, you are going to have trouble remembering me. But I do remember the minister of the Memorial Church at my college and his sermon that morning. And his sermon was called “what we forgot to tell you.” And he said we told you this was an exclusive place. We told you you were special. We told you were going to go out and be powerful and successful because you made it through all these exclusive gates. What we forgot to tell you was that it’s not about exclusivity. It’s about inclusivity. It’s about how many people you include in your march through life — how many people you help — how many people you reach out a hand to. That’s what made all the creative people I wrote about great.
I talked about Steve Jobs and his passion. In the Summer of 2011 when it was clear that he was not going to outrun the cancer, I sat with them for hours on end by his bed. And I asked him, you talked about the passion for product and the products you make — is that your legacy? And he said, no, I’ve come to realize that life is like a river. You get to take beautiful things out of the river — wonderful things people have invented — wonderful products they’ve made — wonderful services they’ve come up with. And if you’re lucky, you took a lot out of that river. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not what you take out of the river, but what you put back into the river that’s going to give your life meaning.
Ebenezer Scrooge played by the scoreboard that many of us play by. The one where points come from status, power, and money. But as he neared the end of his life, Scrooge realized none of these things matter.
The second we get money, status, or power we’re not satisfied. We just want more. We think these things mean something, but they don’t.
Who hasn’t experienced this? I remember when I first started working in a large organization. I told myself that if I just got a promotion, I’d be happy. Well, promotions came and went and none of them made me happier. All of them only left me wanting more.
While we tell ourselves that the next level is enough, it never is. The next zero in your bank account won’t satisfy you any more than you are now. The next promotion won’t change who you are. The fancy car won’t make you happier. The bigger house doesn’t solve your problems.
Pay attention to what you are chasing because, in the end, you just might get it. And the cost of “success” might be the things that really matter.
“Never risk what you have and need,” wrote Warren Buffett, “for what we don’t have and don’t need.” In pursuit of our goals, we inevitably give up things that matter. We sleep less. We spend less time with our friends. We eat unhealthily. We skip workouts. We cancel dates. We miss dinner with the family.
When it comes to living a meaningful life, the only scoreboard that matters is yours. Don’t let your ego get in the way of the person you really want to be or the life you really want to live.
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.“
Austin Kleon had a good post this week on curiosity and the absence of certainty. And, I agree with Austin that Ravelli’s writing also applies to art.
Absence of certainty, awareness of ignorance
The physicist Carlo Rovelli has a beautiful way of talking about science in terms of ignorance and curiosity.
In Helgoland: Making Sense of Quantum Revolution, he writes:
I believe that one of the greatest mistakes made by human beings is to want certainties when trying to understand something. The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical absence of certainty. Thanks to the acute awareness of our ignorance, we are open to doubt and can continue to learn and to learn better. This has always been the strength of scientific thinking—thinking born of curiosity, revolt, change.
A walk is, in a sense, the smallest sort of journey we can ever undertake. It stands in relation to a typical holiday as a bonsai tree does to a forest.
But even if it is only an eight-minute interlude around the block or a few moments in a nearby park, a walk is already a journey in which many of the grander themes of travel are present.
The need to go for a walk begins from the same place as the longing to take off to another country: with a desire to restart our minds. We sometimes cannot work it all out by staying rooted in one place. We have stared at the screen too long, we have been bumping into the same inner obstacles without progress, we have grown claustrophobic with ourselves.
