End game of life – An important lesson

Recently in a Management Development Program, we were asked “How would you like people to remember you after you die?” We were given 15 minutes to think about it and write it on a piece of paper. Amazingly, one common thought that figured on all 45 participants’ list was – “I want to be remembered as a good human being”. That means, the end game of our lives is “to be good” and not only “to be super rich” or “be super successful” – and that was a great realization.

It is great to have goals for career success and attain things that matter to us. But in this journey of attainment, we must never forget to be good to others.  That is what I learnt from this experience.

On the same lines, I loved this paragraph from Peggy Noonan’s “A Life’s Lesson” on Wall Street Journal where she writes –

In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn’t. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn’t, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That’s what it really admires. That’s what we talk about in eulogies, because that’s what’s important. We don’t say, “The thing about Joe was he was rich.” We say, if we can, “The thing about Joe was he took care of people.”

How wonderful! The article ends with an even more thought provoking question  –

“Question: When you die, are people in your profession going to feel your loss? Why not? What can you do better? When you leave, are your customers—in Tim’s case it was five million every Sunday morning, in your case it may be the people who come into the shop, or into your office—going to react like this? Why not?”

Time to ruminate and seek answers! More on this in the posts to come.