How many times have you heard this story?
Some dude, let’s call him John, works super hard his whole life. He climbs the corporate ladder and ends up a top executive at his firm.
As he gets older, his wife begs him to retire so they can relax and travel more. He resists as long as he can but eventually, he takes his leave.
The company throws him a nice party at the Holiday Inn. They give him a shiny watch and he gives them some cliche speech about how he has enjoyed his time with the company.
Then he makes some joke about his golf game. Everyone laughs. “Oh, John. We are going to miss you around here,” says everyone he chats up as he leaves the party that night.
The next thing he knows, he finds himself waking up on a Monday morning with absolutely nothing to do.
At first, this idea seemed fantastic. Finally, he would have time to do all the things he has been putting off. He can clean the gutters and repair the shed like he has wanted to do for years. But when the actual day came, he woke up terrified. The only thing he could think was…
What do I do now?
He tries to take up some hobbies. He joins the country club and starts to work on his golf game. But something is missing. He is bored. He is restless. He grows more and more depressed and anxious.
He begins to get snippy with his wife. Maybe he takes up drinking to fill the time and to feel a little better. He’s miserable and he is a miserable person to be around.
One day, he seems to be sleeping in a little later than usual, so his wife goes to wake him up and get him going for the day. But when she tries, she notices he is cold to the touch. He died in his sleep. That’s it. His life is over.
It had only been 8 months since he retired. They were supposed to spend their golden years traveling the world and now he’s gone. He was in perfect health.
What happened?
It turns out he had nothing else to live for besides his job. When that was taken away, so was his purpose in life. He had nothing left. And no matter how hard he tried to find it in menial hobbies, he couldn’t. He gave up. And when our soul gives up, our body is quick to follow.
This is such a sad story that happens time and time again. We hear about it all the time. Without a purpose, something to live for, strive for, we wither up and die.
Humans are not meant to just exist. We are meant to grow and achieve great things. We live for a challenge. We have to have a goal on the horizon in order for us to feel some hope. Without hope, life starts to feel pretty pointless.
It’s ambition that keeps us alive.
What would have changed the story for John? I don’t know exactly. But I do know that we need something more than a job to live for. Jobs will come and go. Careers can change. We need something deeper than that to hold onto. We need a personal mission statement.
What is our life about? What do we care most about? What legacy do we want to leave when we are gone? If we can answer these questions and put them into a statement we can remember, then we have a fighting chance. We have something bigger than ourselves that we are living for.
Here is my mission statement:
To be a light where it is dark
To make as much music as I can that inspires and encourages people who are hurting
To be constantly improving on my craft of writing, performing, recording and mixing
To provide a community to those who feel isolated and alone
To be THE leader in the positive hip hop movement
To be 100% debt free
To have $3.8M in the bank and be financially free
To travel the world
To make my record company a successful business and do it fulltime
To start a company that helps others pay their medical bills
To weigh 220 pounds and maintain that weight for life
To spend every waking moment of every day fulfilling this purpose.
It’s not perfect and it is always evolving, but it gives me a true north to head towards. It gives me purpose and fills me with hope. It inspires me on days when things feel pointless. It gives me life.
Everybody wants but nobody tries.
If you don’t want to end up another tragic story like John, there is something you can do. Sit down and write out your mission statement. Have you ever done that? It doesn’t have to be perfect, just get it started. Get something down on paper.
Read your mission statement every day. It will keep you centered and focused. And when that day comes where you want to retire, you can do so with peace because you know you are just retiring from a job. You are not retiring from the ambitions that drive you.
There is no watch shiny enough that could ever get me to retire from those.