Sometimes on vacation I think about the famous quote, “No one on their deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work’.”
I think about the beautiful lines from the poet Mary Oliver:
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
These past weeks I disconnected from screens, from email, from the sights and rhythms of my workdays. I reconnected to the activities that I love: being present for family and friends, taking care of them as best I can. Spending time in nature, breathing fresh air and using my body. Discovering new parts of the earth. Making new friends. Making corny jokes and tickling my daughters. Music! Contemplating questions that have no answers.
It occurred to me, as it always does on vacation, that a good life is full of these things. That I would probably be satisfied, at the end of this brief adventure, if I had absolutely maximized the time and energy I devoted to the daily pastimes on that short list.
And it occurred to me that “business” is not on it. Building tech startups is not on it. Project management and marketing strategy and recruiting and negotiating financing deals, the things that fill my days, are not, either.
Part of me wants to throw my hands up and say, “yup, it’s all bullshit!” and quit my job. Why waste time, in this one wild and precious life, on anything outside my short list of fulfilling things?
* * *
But it’s not quite so simple, of course, and not just because there are bills to pay.
Contributing to the greater good, working to make a more just and harmonious world for future generations – that one is on my list. And I know that even though the daily activities involved in that are not always meaningful, the ultimate goal is worthy of some drudgery. I would surely be unsatisfied if I went through my life without trying, without doing my all-out best, to make this world more compassionate and sustainable.
I also have inside of me, like many people, an intense ambition to succeed that drives my work. In periods of extended vacation from work I become restless, I cannot quiet an internal voice that pushes me to build something, something big. I learned a long time ago to accept this ambition, to not judge it as good or bad, the same way I accept that I am lactose intolerant and nearsighted and that I still like the Dave Matthews Band. I have an ambition to succeed. I find myself in the startup world because I’ve followed my interests, my path has led me here. These are undeniable parts of who I am.
So I find myself with this dilemma: I believe that a good life, the life I’d like to lead, is filled with certain daily activities. Yet I spend most of my workdays doing other things, spending too much precious time on unfulfilling tasks.
That doesn’t seem right, even though I find myself in this situation for seemingly good or unavoidable reasons.
What should I do?
* * *
I could just ignore the dilemma at the end of my vacation, go back to the inertia of my life and work – which is, after all, mostly enjoyable – and pick up the existential pondering during my next vacation.
No, too easy.
I could totally change directions and find a career where the individual tasks of my workdays are actually on my list of worthy ways to spend time. I daydream sometimes that I could become a writer, a teacher, a Rabbi, a doctor, a singer-songwriter. But I know that those careers are not as pure and fulfilling as one would imagine from the outside, that a purely fulfilling profession does not exist, it is a kind of impossible ideal. I am wholly unqualified for some of them (my singing voice sounds like a traffic accident). And I’m not sure how to do those things in a way that satisfies my ambition or is true to who I am.
I could resolve to limit the amount of time and energy I devote to work, to make more space in each day for the fulfilling things. I already do this, I do have time for my family, for reading, for walks in nature. But my work nevertheless occupies my mind and spirit too much, I think. I could try to limit it even more by taking on fewer projects at work, or working fewer hours.
The last option I can think of is the hardest and least satisfying. Yet at the end of this vacation, like every vacation when I have this reflection, I come to the same conclusion: that the best way to live a good life while being true to myself is to try harder to do it at work. Try harder to incorporate the activities I find meaningful into my work on a daily basis, even though it can be unnatural.
• • •
Life will be richer if I try harder, at work, to be a caring friend to my coworkers, regardless of the pressure from project deadlines or strategy disagreements or power dynamics.
My work will be more fulfilling if I purge any notion of status from my work and my teams. Most of us work in sectors where there is always someone more successful, higher ranking, or richer. We end up in these systems that place us on a scale of importance, whether we want to be on them or not – because we are constantly requesting approval, or seeking resources, or recruiting, or trying to get someone’s attention. These status systems run contrary to the fundamental majesty and completeness of every person. Being present for the people around me is possible only when I recognize our equality as flesh and blood, our equality as supernatural beings. I must try harder to be present to my own holy soul and everyone else’s, too.
My days will be more meaningful if I try to make good jokes at work, even when I’m preoccupied with puzzles in a way that makes me grumpy. If I ask the unanswerable questions at work, bring them up whenever I can, even when it might be a waste of time.
I can be more artistic in what I do. I can try harder to find opportunities to learn. I can have meetings outside in nature, have meetings while walking, even when that is complicated to pull off.
I can also try harder to avoid the parts of my work that deflate my spirit and my inspiration and my good humor. Everyone, I am sure, has a set of things they do at work that feel particularly unworthy of our time. Can we just stop doing them?
I realize, coming back from this vacation with a fresher spirit, that boy oh boy does the tech news bring me down. The industry press is full of breathless coverage of things that don’t matter, massive resources invested in competitions that probably make this world a worse place: new ad technologies, better automation for sales and marketing, and just so much coverage of bitcoin and crypto. At least half of the headlines are celebrations of financings, a fetishization of money money money. In this new school year I will stop following the industry press, the value is not worth the toxicity.
These resolutions will not make my work purely fulfilling, of course. But I do not believe in purity. I do believe in a never-ending quest for greater integrity.
And, of course, I believe I ought to take more vacations.
"I do not believe in purity. I do belive in a never-ending quest for greater integrity." really love that line.
Thank you for sharing with honesty. It helps all of us, who read what you shared, to move our own thoughts further along.
Oh la la ! Just came back too from a 3 week vacation... Thanks for the thoughts, Rob ! And let me know if you finally decide to give it a shot to your singer-songwriter skills :P