Regrets Aren’t a Bad Thing
Have you ever asked anyone whether they have regrets? The most common answer is a forceful: “I never have regrets; I did what I did and don’t dwell on the past.”
I don’t subscribe to that philosophy, at least not fully. Yes, living in the past is useless if you get stuck in it, but regrets can help us uncover what we really value or want.
For example, if you let yourself feel the sadness at having lost friendships through neglect, being too busy to find time to hang out, you might be motivated to take “friend-time” today.
So yes, let’s not live in regret but let’s not push them away without contemplating what we can learn from them. Isn’t that the point of making mistakes?
We Could Be Happy If We Didn’t Have to Work
The freedom to get up when we want, do what we want. Not to have to worry about getting ahead, or even keeping our jobs or our clients. Not having to solve problems all the time.
Can’t you feel the relief? No wonder the hammock swimming from the tree is such a frequent setting for ads.
But is it really true that people who don’t have to work are happier? To make it a fair comparison, you can’t look only at retired people but also at people in their 30s, 40s and 50s who are, as they say, independently wealthy because of inheritance, marriage, or prior lucrative businesses (or even lottery winners, but that’s a story in its own).
And guess what: once a basic lifestyle has been secure, there is little correlation between wealth and happiness.
Isn’t that counter intuitive? We’ve all said “money doesn’t create happiness” but the vast majority of us deep down really thought: “But I’d be different. Give me the money to free me from my rat race and I’ll have it made.”
We want the freedom to play, create, and have flexibility. The trouble is, many of us forget what we wanted to have money do for us in the first place. We might travel, buy nice things and entertain ourselves, but when we take time to reflect on it, our life feels rather aimless.
In his best seller book, “The 4-Hour Workweek” Tim Ferris says that when he goes on one of his extended stays in a foreign country, he always creates for himself both a physical and an intellectual project. His life purpose seems to be to challenge himself and to learn.
That sums up rather well the psyche of the human spirit.
And you know, we can do that even if we still have to work.
Are Children of Wealthy Parents Good for Nothing?
You know the stereotypes: spoiled brats or without ambition. We’ve heard it often enough and I don’t have statistics to prove either way. Whether or not they run into difficulties more than other people, affluent kids do face certain issues because of the family’s wealth:
- They have more money and often also more time to get into trouble (not having to work to fund their education). We all know teenagers have a design flaw: they have a seemingly irresistible urge to sow wild oats, to experiment. The more hangout time they have, the more exposure they get to dubious ideas (theirs or their friends’). And the more money they have to party with, the fewer external limits on drugs and alcohol.
- Many feel entitled to whatever they want; they pretty much always did get it, so why wouldn’t that continue. That can create a number of serious problems: they haven’t learned how to push themselves which makes them lazy; they aren’t very resilient in the face of defeat because they haven’t faced adversity; they can be, well, unlikeable because of their arrogance; and they might also lack in empathy which makes them highly flawed human beings.
- On the other side of the coin, some are burdened with heavy expectations: maintaining the family tradition of excellence, and that might not suit the type of personality they were born with.
- Not only that, they may not feel like they have a choice of career; they are not allowed the right to follow their life purpose if it isn’t one of the “acceptable” paths. So their choice may be either to live with a squashed spirit or to rebel.
Of course, there are many affluent children and young adults who are delightful, well adjusted and a gift to their community, and others who are just plain average.
My point here? This whole subject is just another example of how success can bring a new set of problems if it’s not managed properly.
I Got What I Wanted; Why Am I Not Happy
That’s what a client of mine once said. She had just gotten divorced under “great” circumstances: it was what she wanted, the children were grown up and on their own so there was no custody issue, and there was plenty of money for both spouses so divorce wasn’t a financial trauma. She finally had the independence she had been craving. And she was lost.
It’s not like she had gone through the anger and sadness of having been ditched and replaced by a younger model or that she missed their life together. She was bright and quite capable of managing on her own. But there is one thing she didn’t have.
You see, though she looked like she had “a life” and quite an active one, she really had never developed a sense of personal purpose. Her purpose was tied to her marriage: she was the prominent wife; that was her identity even when the marriage had cooled off to a point where they didn’t spend much time together.
The good news is that she had the time to explore who she was and what she really wanted, and the resources to act on her findings.
The bad news is that if she tried to fill her life without purpose, she could end up very busy but feeling rather empty without knowing why.
Major life transitions like divorce can be difficult (she was one of the few lucky ones!) but they also are great opportunities to reinvent ourselves or discover who we always were.
Why Would High Marks at School Be Bad For Your Career?
For one thing, the ability to relate to people is the main success factor in business (more about that in later posts). Many of us paid the price for high marks with long hours of concentrated work, leaving little time to pursue other interests.
I know that I would go through my MBA differently knowing what I know; I would spend a lot less time with my nose in books, and a lot more being involved in various activities with people. Of course, it’s a balance.
Making high marks a priority can also prevent a student from experimenting with a new subject and with taking risks on choosing a project topic. Looking back, I see I missed great opportunities to learn a lot more than what I did, not only about subjects, but also about how to think your way through more uncertain territory. (Thankfully, I came to my senses later in life).
Finally, I’ve observed that many people who have worked hard at school and then in their careers don’t know themselves that well. They never devoted time and attention to exploring who they really are, and can find out that they spent their lives climbing the ladder only to find that it’s against the wrong wall.
Why do we want more money?
Everybody wants more, for reasons that can be categorized as either:
- Security
- Power (ambition, achievement, self-confidence)
- Enjoyment (of experiences)
- Altruism
- Or freedom of choice
Very few of us want money for money’s sake, but for what it can allow in our lives. Yet many of us seem to have lost sight of our ultimate goal; we live as if money itself was the object of our desire.
For example, do you know anyone who wants money for the freedom of choice, yet works so hard at her business that she rarely has time to get away?
Or someone who says that his family is the most important part of his life, yet he rarely sees them because of his career?
Now, constant life balance is rarely possible. We all have deadlines and special circumstances that require our extra attention at the office for a while. But what if that becomes the norm?
If our families never see much of us…and we don’t really see an end in sight to that rhythm, how can we say that they are the most important thing to us? The truth is, they were at some point, but no longer; they have been displaced by other more pressing motives.
We might not have intended for that to happen, but it’s the truth. If you are one of those people, be brutally honest: how much is the drive at work to be a good provider, and how much is for other reasons (self esteem, the adrenaline of winning, fear of losing out, etc.)
If our business was supposed to give us freedom but has gobbled up all of our time and energy with no end in sight, when do we think we are going to be able to enjoy that freedom?
What we do with our lives is up to us, and if a person wants to concentrate most of her time on her career, that’s totally her choice. Let’s make sure it truly is a choice and not a runaway life.
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