What will you say when you are 90?

I recently read Viktor Frankl's masterpiece Man's Search for Meaning.  I am a bit ashamed that I had not read it before for a couple of reasons:

1) It is one of the top 25 most influential books as noted by the Library of Congress.

2) His concepts are the basis for the Blessing White "engagement model" which I think is the best model for thinking about how to engage and motivate people.

That said, I am very glad to now have read it and so want to offer a few comments that I hope others might find reflective or useful.

Frankl's book is another great example of teaching through stories.  In his case, his story is about himself and others who were prisoners at Auschweitz and a few other concentration camps in WWII.  Frankl survived the ordeal and his story is real life depiction of both the horrors and the people who endured them.  How, did they keep going each day?  How did some even have the enlightenment to keep a forward looking outlook?

He devotes about the first 2/3 of the book to the stories and the teachings from the stories.  The last 1/3 is a more specific introduction to the theory of Logotherapy.   It is a type of existentialist analysis that focuses on a will to meaning as opposed to Adler's Nietzschian doctrine of "will to power" or Freud's "will to pleasure".

So, to the point.  One of Frankl's stories is about a woman who is suicidal.  The story goes something like this….this is NOT verbatim.  She had recently lost one son and was still caring for another son who was confined to a wheel chair.  She was so filled with despair for her loss and her situation, she tried to kill herself, survived and was in a therapy group with which Frankl was involved on one day.  He asked several people in the group to answer one question: What will say about your life when you are 80? (I have restated the number to "90" for this piece because we live a bit longer in current times)  One woman in the group who had lived a life of leisure with great wealth who had travelled the world over reflected and stated in an alarmed way that even though she had great experiences and had a lot of fun, she did not think that she would left much meaning to her life.  Then the suicidal mom spoke with emotion that she would feel that she had given her son the best life that she could…that she WAS contributing greatly to his high quality of life and without her, his life would be much different.

It was at this moment, that the "poor" woman realized that her life was "rich".

I used to counsel younger managers in my past corporate life….some in my company and some in other companies through a mentoring program in which I participated.  Sometimes, managers feel overwhelmed….with so much pressure to accomplish more at work, to accomplish more so that they can achieve promotions and build a career….and the additional pressure that they want to spend time with family or spend time exercising, etc.  The reality is that if you have high initiative, most companies have plenty of good work to be done and really could consume one 24 hours of day if we could physically do it.

And don't get me wrong, I spent my times as a workaholic, out of balance with all the the things that make life rich.  But as I matured, I did strive for balance; burning the candle on both ends at times for projects and finding more balance in life at other times.  Demanding competitive industries and jobs do require extraordinary effort and work product at times.  It is NOT healthy for companies nor people to try produce at that extreme level continuously.

So, I state a simple statement: "I have NEVER heard of anyone wishing on their deathbed that they had spent more time at work".  Then the follow-on question: "What would YOU wish you had spent more time doing on your deathbed?"

And in reality, life can be amazingly and suddenly short.  So, WHEN precisely are we going to take time to do the things that we keep saying we need to take time to do?

So, don't wait for your time later in life to reflect….reflect now as if it might be the last day of your life.  And if you want your life to have more meaning, love, whatever works for you, work on making your life the life that you will want to look back on with pride and satisfation.

If you are interested in Frankl's book….here is a link to get it on Amazon….it is a thin book filled with substance….just the type I like to recommend to others who maybe struggle finding time to read!!

Barb