OPINION:
As part of a lovely graduation ceremony, the dean of a business school last week encouraged graduates to pursue things that give life relevance outside of the workplace. That’s good, and he probably would have been OK if he had stopped there. Unfortunately, he did not.
He went on to suggest that the graduates focus on what he called the “obituary test,” which he borrowed from Warren Buffett, who suggested that the way to avoid mistakes in life is to write one’s own obituary and then try to live up to it.
That seems like really bad advice.
First, none of us has much control over the context of our lives, and change is both constant and, in some cases, welcome.
It is impossible for a 22-year-old to imagine what changes might be in store in the next 50 years. War? Disease? Famine? Artificial intelligence destroying the world? The Mets winning the World Series? All possibilities that would affect what people might be able to do, as well as what people might value and think, are important.
At 22, it is impossible to guess what is likely to be the most important achievement in your life. For example, as we age, many people focus on and value family and friends, while educational and employment achievements fade in importance.
Planning your life around a promotional document seems unwise and unlikely to lead to happiness. Worrying about what one’s obituary might say corrodes one’s ability to live in the moment.
Most importantly, obituaries are, like eulogies, fundamentally propaganda. They are not routinely fact-checked, and unless the deceased had the misfortune of being famous, they usually leave out the questionable things that the deceased may have done in their life.
They are summaries that can’t possibly begin to describe a person’s life. In my alma mater’s alumni magazine, the template is always the same: “Jane Smith, class of (insert year here), passed away. She worked as a commodities trader at Morgan Stanley, and served on the board of the Montclair Garden Club.”
That’s great, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with Jane Smith’s life, which almost certainly consisted of family and friends and moments of pain and doubt and joy and happiness and successes and disappointments of all kinds.
The dean also encouraged the graduates to take the long view. Here’s the long view. There are only two ways to think about this: Either the complete record of one’s life is either going to be judged by the Author of all things, or there is no God and none of this really matters. There is no third option.
Obviously, God knows whatever he needs to know about individuals and is unlikely to be impressed by a list of what the world considers “achievements.” If there is no God, the propaganda is pointless.
The graduates — and all of us — should probably entertain a different line of thought. Live your life in such a way as to be prepared for the judgment of all of your life. Don’t worry about temporal achievements; they are ultimately ephemeral. Focus on helping those who God or destiny or whatever has placed in your path. Because ultimately, the measure of a life — what really survives — is the good that a person has done for one’s fellow humans.
Forget the obituary test. Focus on the final judgment test.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. He can be reached at mike@mwrstrat.com.
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