ABOUT once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. You often catch them looking after other people and as they do so their laugh is musical and their manner is infused with gratitude. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all.
– David Brooks
I recently read an article where American journalist and pundit, David Brooks, talked about his realization that we all live our lives via a mixture of “resume” values and “eulogy” values.
Resume values are the things you’d put on your resume – hard-working, ambitious, goal-oriented, etc. – while the eulogy values are the ones you (hope to) hear about at your funeral – kind, brave, generous, friendly, honest, loving.
A big part of Brooks’ epiphany was that the people who are often the most conventionally “successful” in life are good at the resume values but that they often also have a hole in their lives because they aren’t as good at the eulogy values. On the other hand, those who are most happy and contented excel at the eulogy values.
This was a timely article for me because, without having a name for it, I’ve been consciously trying to focus on doing a lot more to focus on my “eulogy” values, even at the expense of my “resume” values.
Although I think I’ve always had a strong undercurrent of eulogy values as part of my personal make-up, it’s well documented on this blog that I came out of library school fairly focused on the resume values – involved in committees, volunteering, publishing articles, attending and presenting at conferences, winning awards, etc. etc. etc. One classmate semi-seriously joked that I’d probably be a CLA President some day. Another was more blunt: “You’ve got a rocket strapped to your ass.”
But after heading in a certain direction for the first few years of my career, I’ve re-assessed my life and decided that I don’t need a lot of what the resume values approach gives you. Instead, I’ve become much more focused on doing things that reinforce and expand my eulogy values.
Here’s Brooks’ TED talk on the subject.
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