The title says it all. What is your life about? Other ways of asking this question might be, “Where are you going?”, and “How do you measure your life?”
To start, we might need to ask if you’re life is about anything at all. Some of you might suggest that there isn’t a grand design, so there’s really no purpose to life. But maybe believing in a grand design doesn’t matter. You’re here now. You’ve got some days, probably even years left. What do you want to do with your time here on earth?
Happiness and Success
You could make it all about being happy. You could pursue what feels good, what’s fun, what makes you laugh. You’ll always be in search of that next happy moment. You feel good when you buy something for yourself, so you buy lots of things. You entertain yourself with lots of media. You pursue hobbies. You could make your life all about happiness, but I think you could do better.
You could make it all about your success. You could pursue that career, the bigger paycheck, the upgrade in lifestyle, and that position of prestige. The problem is that “success” is always defined as “not where I am.” So you’re always pursuing, never reaching. Once you get the bigger paycheck, you’ll be wanting a bigger one. Your lifestyle always could be better. Someone else has a more prestigious position that you. So, you need more, more, and more. This is what your life could be all about, but I think you could do better.
When you pursue happiness and success, those things won’t last beyond your life span.
Products and Services
You could make it all about that next product idea. You could start a company, create a new device that changes the way people communicate, for example. The “start up company” is all the rave these days. But will it really change things for the better? I can’t answer. All I know is that in my career, I’ve worked on and developed over five different product lines. As a software engineer, I created some of the earliest CD-Recordable software, file sharing software, software for the Comanche Helicopter, operating system software, and Linux code for FPGAs, and more. Just about of these products are gone – not sold any more, not used any more. I’ve seen whole technologies come and then just about disappear. Remember CRT TVs? The longevity of these things isn’t really there.
So this is at least focused on your contribution to the world. Yet, all the while, people are rarely any different because of theses new products, technologies, and services. And when all is said and done, I for one, wouldn’t want my life to be all about technology and products. I certainly wouldn’t expect or even want it to come up in my eulogy.
People
So finally, you could make it all about your investment with people. You could spend your years changing corporate culture for the better, you could make it all about finding real solutions to societal problems. or you could simply help people relate and connect much better, among other things. How you affect people cam have a ripple effect that can last for generations to come – especially if you’re intentional about creating the ripple.
So, I ask again, “What is your life about? Where are you going? How do you measure your life?”
