I am a fan of the Charlie Rose show on American Public Television. I record all of them and then selectively watch them as I vegetate.
On couple of recent interviews with the accomplished citizenry that he invites to talk, I heard a lot about resumes vs. eulogies. The thought is that people often work hard at building an image of who they are when they are alive but often forget to think beyond.
Now truth be told that the very accomplished end up in an ideal spot where they effectively give away all that they made when living, which sets them up for a nice eulogy. But the message was clear. We need to pay attention to more Living and less Chasing.
When our electronic devices remind us that there is only critical amount of juice left to perform critical tasks (not text your latest hobby to your thousand friends but make that all important phone call you have been putting off), we seem to go on a panic attack and want to find the nearest charging temple (wonder if that is a business idea for all the Indian Shrines - donate to Ganesha and get 15 min of iphone charging free - but I digress).
Likewise we need to focus on when we are reaching our limit of endurance in the modern day rat race for accomplishments. Each one of us tries to define success for ourselves and many times it takes the form of one-upmanship; in our day job to the street we live on. It almost becomes second nature where we do not recognize that it is happening. We keep doing more and pushing our children to do the same with the available time because we think it is the modern way.
A lot of American success stories (fame, power, wealth generation) including everyday folks that aspire and seek higher office everywhere you look, seem to also have some collateral damage embedded in them in the form of broken marriages, children that fell into disrepair due to poor or absent parenting or worse.
I think it is critical to do some internalizing of what we really want to achieve and how we can best use our time on the planet, especially to ensure our children learn something worth while till we are around. Their candid reaction about their dead parent would be the ultimate eulogy!
On couple of recent interviews with the accomplished citizenry that he invites to talk, I heard a lot about resumes vs. eulogies. The thought is that people often work hard at building an image of who they are when they are alive but often forget to think beyond.
Now truth be told that the very accomplished end up in an ideal spot where they effectively give away all that they made when living, which sets them up for a nice eulogy. But the message was clear. We need to pay attention to more Living and less Chasing.
When our electronic devices remind us that there is only critical amount of juice left to perform critical tasks (not text your latest hobby to your thousand friends but make that all important phone call you have been putting off), we seem to go on a panic attack and want to find the nearest charging temple (wonder if that is a business idea for all the Indian Shrines - donate to Ganesha and get 15 min of iphone charging free - but I digress).
Likewise we need to focus on when we are reaching our limit of endurance in the modern day rat race for accomplishments. Each one of us tries to define success for ourselves and many times it takes the form of one-upmanship; in our day job to the street we live on. It almost becomes second nature where we do not recognize that it is happening. We keep doing more and pushing our children to do the same with the available time because we think it is the modern way.
A lot of American success stories (fame, power, wealth generation) including everyday folks that aspire and seek higher office everywhere you look, seem to also have some collateral damage embedded in them in the form of broken marriages, children that fell into disrepair due to poor or absent parenting or worse.
I think it is critical to do some internalizing of what we really want to achieve and how we can best use our time on the planet, especially to ensure our children learn something worth while till we are around. Their candid reaction about their dead parent would be the ultimate eulogy!
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