I hear it over and over. Your career highlights won’t be on your tombstone. It is your family name that will be there.
The lesson? Be everything to your children. No one will ever say you could have worked more. You will only say, I could have been with my family more. The problem is, these well intended thoughts are actually wrong.
It is about family. There is not question about that. But there’s more. It about fulfilling your life’s purpose (and that in many cases it can be accomplished through a career).
Yet most people won’t have their career highlights on their tombstone. Most will just toil at work. Most won’t serve their life’s purpose. Few will attempt changing the world.
Take the time necessary to discover your life’s purpose, and make your career in service of it. Integrate your family, your friends, everything into your life’s purpose. Aspire to have a tombstone sharing the wonderful impact you had on the world and the world of your children.
A quote from Joseph Epstein, “We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents, or the country of our birth. We do not, most of us, hoose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this reaalm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.” That’s what “The Dash” by Linda Ellis is all about. Read it. It’s a poem and it will make you think.
Powerful! Thanks for sharing that poem.