In the modern world, almost everyone is devoting brain power to living a great life. Young people are keenly aware of their parent’s generations failings and want to avoid a life full of things but low on meaning.
And so starts an anxiety-inducing search for the holy grail of fulfillment. Volunteering, travel, activism, entrepreneurship, masters degrees, psychedelic drugs. Almost everything is on the table, except for the things that we’ve known for generation after generation.
What matters (or mattered) to your grandparents when they arrived in the later stages of their life?
Kids, grandkids, brothers and sisters, long-term friends, church, community, and career.
Usually pretty close to that order.
Today we search high a low looking for ways to reinvent the world or feel that we need to discover an elixir in the jungles of the Amazon or reinvent an industry in Silicon Valley to have a life well lived. But the recipe for a life well lived seems to be a lot more simple (though not easy).
It’s starting a family, providing for them physically and emotionally, it’s doing your best to stay connected with your family and with your most important friends, it’s making an impact in the direct communities that you are a part of, and it’s having a career that allows you to see yourself creating value (without overdoing it and failing in your other roles).
It seems to me that if you do those simple things and you take the time to appreciate moments along the way, you’ll arrive at a pretty great destination.
Leave a Reply