US President, Richard Nixon, said it well:
“To me, the unhappiest people of the world are those in the watering places… going to parties every night, playing golf every afternoon, then bridge, drinking too much, talking too much, thinking too little, retired, no purpose… They don’t know life. Because what makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. The battle. The struggle. Even if you don’t win it.”
In 2023, the polarizing psychologist, Jordan Peterson said something very similar. Retirement is great and all, (who wouldn’t want to sip margaritas on the beach). But after the novelty of the first night wears off, you find yourself going from top of the heap to “some fat, sunburned alcoholic in no time flat.” The title of the clip is literally called, “This Is Why Retiring Is A Bad Idea.”
The truth is, we humans are not born for comfort. We’re not born to be idle.
We’re born to step into the arena. Winning or losing is secondary – the experience of “significance” is what counts. And that is only experienced in relation to chasing or reaching a worthwhile goal. As Marcus Aurelius wrote ~1,800 years before Nixon:
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
It’s the never ending paradoxical relationship we have with virtue vs having nice things. Like St. Augustine said, “O Lord, make me chaste, just not yet.”
The secret to human flourishing is that we never really arrive. Instead, we must do what Winston Churchill always recommended, even in the darkest days of World War II- “K.B.O.”- Keep Buggering On.
When you think about it, there’s something quite toxic about the feeling of having “arrived.” Sure, it’s great to pop the champagne corks once you’ve done it, but then what?
And large organizations are no different. The atrophy often begins once they hit the Number One spot. That’s when maintaining status, the bureaucracy, and office politics become the new raison d’être. The game of late-night innovation sessions replaced with Eighteen Holes.
Great companies never feel like they’ve arrived, never feel like they have the luxury of coasting. Great cultures, ditto. It’s not a magic strategy. It’s just how people are made. We’re a “use it or lose it” species.
And thank heavens for that.
