Taking Stock For Your Tombstone
by Miki SaxonWhat do you think about when you take stock of your life? What do you strive for? What makes you feel successful?
Before I go into this there is a caveat I want to make very clear.
What I’m about to write is NOT a judgment call—having been brought up in a judgmental family I don’t judge. Sure, I have opinions, we all do, but I don’t judge. The most I can say is “X isn’t right for me, but Y is.”
I might recommend Y; I might even argue passionately regarding the merits of Y, but in the end it’s your decision and you need to tweak/modify/change Y to fit your MAP—if you decide you have any interest in it at all—because Y is a product of my MAP and no two MAPs are identical.
Back to taking stock.
In a post at LeaderTalk, Becky Robinson says, “I still have more than half my life left to live… Still, with each birthday I feel the anxiety of wondering if I am living up to my potential. … Often, I can’t wake up from my daydreams of a disciplined and directed life long enough to make that life happen. … I have learned from experience that I need both [self awareness and willingness to change] if I want to be successful in life and leadership.”
To me, it was a very sad post. Sad because the focus seemed to be both personally judgmental and set such store on such an intangible as ‘leadership’—which is, in fact, a description applied and substantiated by others.
But that is probably just me. I’m very different.
I’m substantially older than Rebecca and have bounced, and occasional blundered, through life opening doors as the mood moved me.
I’ve made and lost money as well as friends as our lives diverged.
To paraphrase something I read somewhere, “a person should be judged by the number of people s/he brings to success,” and based on that I am enormously successful.
If I have any guiding philosophy it’s the same as Google’s—do no evil. I work very hard at not hurting anyone by word or deed, advertently or inadvertently. I doubt that I’m always successful, but it’s a goal about which I’m passionate.
I do not lie, cheat or steal.
If I were to have a tombstone when I die (I won’t, since I’m being cremated and scattered) I think I’d like it to say, “Miki worked hard to do no evil, hurt no person and give back more than she took.”
What would you want on yours?
Your comments—priceless
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Image credit: NatalieMaynor on flickr
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Wow, Miki,
It is surreal to be reading a post and have my words jump off the page at me. In this context, my words do sound sad, although I didn’t experience them that way when writing them. I do have high expectations for myself, Miki. I find that in order to be successful, I have to be disciplined… and being disciplined is a hard thing at times.
As far as what I would want people to remember about me, it is this: I would want people to remember me as serving others in love and kindness. I would also, as you do, view my success in terms of people I have been able to help and influence, especially those closest to me, my husband and daughters.
Thank you for causing me to take a closer look at my own words.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:27 pm
And thank you for accepting that my comments were completely NONjudgmental—just different strokes for different folks.
I understand high expectation and the need for discipline, but not the judging part. Or maybe it’s not judging from where you sit and it is your life:)
If I were coaching you, I’d suggest that instead of looking at how far you have to go to check the odometer and rear-view mirror and see how far you’ve come!
Remember Robert Browning, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
June 4th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Hi again Miki,
I am not sure about the judgment part. I will tell you that I was awake late thinking about this post.
I am curious, though, about your advice to look back instead of looking to the future. Although there are certainly good memories for me in seeing where I have come from, it is also easy to get trapped in regret and wondering how things could have been different if I had made other choices.
Perhaps that is all about MAP – looking back with a certain mindset, attitide, and perspective… looking back to glean the positive from my experiences. Did I get that the way you intended?
June 4th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Becky, I didn’t mean for you to lose sleep over this!
I think looking towards the future in terms of excitement is great, much like an artist looks at a new canvas anticipating the beauty she will create.
As to the regrets and other choices.
I read an interview of Kathrine Hepburn and she was asked if she had any regrets and I still remember her response. She said that of course she had regrets. If one has no regrets one hasn’t lived.
But I also believe that who-I-am-today has no right to judge who-I-was-yesterday except under very specific circumstances.
Based on my premise I have only three regrets and they are biggies. They are also water under the bridge; I will live with the results for the rest of my life since nothing can be done to change them, so why think about them. I learned from them and moved on.
Life is about choices; when you look at how far you’ve come you have the choice to see errors or learning experiences; to congratulate yourself on what you did or beat yourself up over what you didn’t.
You choose.
MAP, too, is about choice, since you can choose to tweak, enhance or change it.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I am puzzled by your take on Rebecca’s post, which struck me as encouraging and honest. She’s right — self-discipline is hard and requires ongoing recommitment. Her post doesn’t say, “Help, I am writhing under a heap of self-condemnation and can’t get up”; it says she is motivated to keep at it. I am glad you linked to it, because it was a well-timed reminder for me. If you’re following this thread, Rebecca, thank you for the post!
June 4th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Hi Jamie, I agree totally that self-discipline is damn hard and most of us struggle with it.
But Becky also said, “I feel the anxiety of wondering if I am living up to my potential. … Often, I can’t wake up from my daydreams of a disciplined and directed life long enough to make that life happen,” which I found sad.
Potential is interesting because there is no way to quantify it… Please come back tomorrow, I feel a full post coming out of this:)