The Next Great Thing

There's a young attorney I know, who has a promising career ahead of him. He's working hard, building a name for himself, and doing good things. I'm privileged to know him and to be a resource that he can chat with from time to time on some of the challenges of working in law...and working in general.

He read the posts that I've had recently on purpose, and he reached out to me to talk about them. It seems that purpose is something that he struggles with as well, trying to validate why he's spending time away from his young family while putting in long hours at his career.

The explanation that he came to was that he was working hard so that he could get to the next great thing. That's not exactly how he said it, but he talked about taking a family vacation this summer, and how great it was. He talked about going skiing with his family this winter, and how much fun it would be. He gets by on a daily basis not by focusing on that day (or even that week or month); rather, he has a mental countdown to the next great thing.

"In just a couple months, I'll take my family to the mountains..."

"Next year, I think we're going to try to go to (destination)..."

I struggled a bit with how to respond to him--whether this was something to validate and support, or something to encourage him to consider further. It's actually one of those times when I took a pause--and told him I wanted to think about what he was saying.

You see, I used to live that life. For several years, I lived my life around a summer vacation to Hawaii, an annual trip to Disney World, and a winter skiing trip to Vail. Day to day, I was counting down to the vacations. When they came, I even changed my personality--I was "Vacation Dad", with all of the funloving, freewheeling craziness that implies. Those vacation days were some of the best days of my life.

But in between those vacation days, there were a lot of non-vacation days. There were a lot of days that I left the house before anyone else was up, and came home after everyone was in bed asleep. There were a lot of days when I'd take a couple hours off when I got home from work to play with my daughter, and then go back to work after she was in bed. There were a lot of days where I missed opportunities for joy, because it wasn't one of those days that I recognized as a personal holiday.

It wasn't just vacation days. I'd live for date nights with my then-wife. I'd live for bike races. I'd live for a lot of things--but they were all independent, discrete events that I could calendar and then count down towards. The individual, day to day life? I found joy in moments, but I was always working to the next big thing--the next great day.

I called my friend back and talked to him, and I encouraged him to look forward to those great days--to plan them, to savor them. But I also told him that they can't be his purpose. I encouraged him to find a purpose that he can live for every day, rather than something that's aspirational to just a handful of days per year. (We're talking about work purpose here, not necessarily personal purpose). I don't think you'll find professional fulfillment if your work purpose is just, "make money so that in 3 months I can do X." I know that I didn't find professional fulfillment when that was my focus. The quality of my work may have been great, but the satisfaction I derived from it was minimal.

So when you have that great day, that great thing--savor it. Live it. Enjoy it.

But on the days in between greatness, find something to savor. If you only fulfill your purpose on 10 vacation days a year, you're leaving a lot on the table.