A life lived well

Good morning,
I pray the day is finding you well.

I was at a breakfast meeting the other day, wondering to myself, “Is this really something I should be at or will I be wasting valuable time that I could be using to help one of the many people that come to me for help? I was up in the air with the whole thing. I was sitting there watching people network; watching people make plans.

Then the speaker got up and said the following quote.

“I see clearly that I achieved practically nothing. The world today and the history of the human anthill during the last 57 years would be exactly the same as it is if I’d played ping pong instead of sitting on committees and writing books and memorandums. I have therefore to make the rather useless confession to myself and anyone who reads this book that I must in my long life ground through between 150,000 – 200,000 hours of perfectly useless work.”
-Sir Leonard Wolfe

He went on to explain the during his lifetime, Sir Leonard Wolfe had been in Parliament, a friend to kings and queens, A prolific writer, made lots of money; by all accounts he was a success . Yet at the end of his life, as he looked back, he could not shake the feeling that instead of doing the things that he had done, his life would have been more impactful if he had done something else.

The speaker then asked the question,”What makes work matter?”

The speaker did not stop there, he went on to say that many people throughout the years had criticized him, pointing out things he could have done differently or better; in essence playing “Monday morning quarterback.” He talked about how sometimes he felt that it would be better to do nothing at all then to try, sometimes fail, and then listen to the critics.

He then shared the following,

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

“Citizenship in a Republic”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris – April 23, 1910
Theodore Roosevelt

He then asked this question, “What is the story I am writing with my life? And is it a good one?”

The two questions,

”What makes work matter?”

“What is the story I am writing with my life? And is it a good one?”

Causes one to pause and wonder" "Am I living a life lived well?

Blessings,