IN the best-selling book, Tuesday’s With Morrie, author Mitch Albom was shocked to see his old professor, Morrie Schwartz, on TV sharing the lessons he had learned since he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, a condition associated with a steady decline and eventual death.
In the 16 years since he had last seen him, Albom had become a successful sports writer and author.
“I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died.”
In most people’s eyes, Albom’s life was a success story. Yet seeing Morrie on the screen made him reflect on past dreams of becoming a musician, joining the Peace Corps and living in beautiful places.
I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never realised I was doing it.
Needing to find some answers to these deeper questions about the direction of his life, Albom decided to pay Morrie a visit that eventually turned into a weekly visit every Tuesday over several weeks. The conversations detailed in the best-selling book, are powerful because of Morrie’s passion for life.
One memorable conversation on the difference between living and dying: “Dying, is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many people who come to visit me are unhappy.”
Why?
“Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We’re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it, create your own.”
If the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own.
When Gallup asked Americans ‘How do you personally define success?’ in 2019, almost everyone (97%) agreed with the statement ‘A person is successful if they have followed their own interests and talents to become the best they can be at what they care about most.’
In response to the question ‘How do others define success?’ only 8% gave the same answer. Instead, the majority (92%) felt other people defined success as ‘A person is successful if they are rich, have a high-profile career or are well known.’
Paul Millerd in The Pathless Path asks why there is a disconnect between how people define success and how we think others define it. He refers to his own struggles with this question: ‘At the age of 27, (after achieving a six-figure salary), because I felt so grateful, I hid the fact that I was feeling increasingly lost. The more people I talked to over the years, the more I’ve realised that my case is closer to the norm and the people that are on the path they are meant to be on are more the exception than the rule.”
Author, Ryan Holiday in 34 mistakes On The Way To 34 Years Old, says something similar: “You know deep down that accomplishing things won’t make you happy, but I think I always fantasized that it would at least feel really good.
I was so wrong. Hitting #1 for the first time as an author felt like… nothing. Being a ‘millionaire’…nothing. It’s a trick of evolution that drives us and no-one is immune from making this mistake.
Millerd suggests that when we realise our mistake, “we find ourselves feeling empty, and the easiest way to deal with this is to ignore the feeling and ratchet up the goal. More money, a bigger house, a new car, a higher salary, an executive position at a company, or a larger retirement nest egg.”
Does this sound all too familiar?
The author concludes that people are reluctant to shift from a path that is leaving them feeling lost because it means rejecting paths that promise all those coveted prizes of money, respect and admiration. Morrie seemed to have figured this out.
“Morrie, true to his words, had developed his own culture - long before he got sick. Discussion groups, walks with friends, dancing to this music in the Harvard Square church. He started a project called the Greenhouse, where poor people could receive mental health services. He read books to find new ideas for his classes, visited with colleagues, kept up with old students, wrote letters to distant friends.”
How many of us forget to send that card, make that phone call, skip a lunch date, hurry past a homeless hostel or a sleeping person on the side of the road, allowing our mind to jump ahead to the next important work date?
To create your own culture, Paul Millerd has a few words of advice. Many people are capable of more than they believe. Creativity is a real path to optimism, meaning and connection.
We don’t need permission to engage with the world and people around us. We are all creative, and it takes some longer to figure that out.
Leisure, or active contemplation, is one of the most important things in life. There are many ways to make money and when an obvious path emerges, there is often a more interesting path not showing itself.
This last one is the most important of all and a good one to consider as Valentine’s Day looms and we think about how to add a sprinkle of passion into our busy, preoccupied lives.
Finding the work that matters to us is the real work of our lives.
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