With Purpose Success, part 19

McDonald. This was the father of famed singer Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish. At Woodstock, Country Joe was the poster child of youthful rebellion after he led the Woodstock masses in the famous cheer that began "Gimme an F." Well, Pop McDonald was equally colorful. His chart contained many highs-but it had even more lows. "Unbroken happiness is a bore," wrote the seventeenth-century French playwright Moliere. "It should have ups and downs." Worden McDonald and I might agree-but only if there were significantly more ups, which does not appear to be the general experience. On average, these sages in their eighth or ninth decade of life reported that around one-third of their waking time on earth had been spent above the success line. Low points outnumbered high points two to one. Each of them had known joy and fulfillment; they just hadn't known how to make the moments last.
The sages' peak moments revealed a pattern. They tended to cluster around three types of success- rich personal relationships; accomplishment or personal growth of almost any kind; and activities that transcended their own self-indulgences and made them feel their life had meaning. I didn't have an inkling of what I'd tripped on back then. But all the latest research on happiness falls right in line with those rough findings of thirty-plus years ago.
A particularly noteworthy outcome was the abject disappointment the sages registered with respect to the great amounts of time they had spent going through life on autopilot, doing what was expected-as so many of us do almost without thought. I learned that when you do things because other people think it's the right thing to do you inevitably end up disappointed. Don't be driven by external goals and objectives. "Peace comes from within," noted Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, some 2,500 years ago. "Do not seek it without." Some part of you ought to be constantly looking ahead-to when you'll be looking back at the decisions you made along the way.
When you were a kid your aunts and uncles and grandparents used to comment how it seemed like just yesterday they were your age. The sages made the same comments, and what struck me was that this wasn't just some cute thing that old people say. This was the truth. Life is a blink. It's a fast ride. You have to make every moment count. I have tried to live my life with that in mind. When I turn eighty-eight or ninety-two I'm sure
I'll have regrets. But those regrets won't include spending too little time with my family, or pursuing a career that I didn't feel passionate about, or focusing so much on me that I failed to see the needs of others. These are things that have a purpose. At the end of the day, these are the things that count.
Success Redefined
So the concept of success needs an overhaul for the next phase of your life. Maybe it shouldn't be about money and advancement; maybe it should be about personal growth, contribution to the greater good, warm relationships, genuine happiness, and finding purpose in everything you do. Maybe it should be about self-fulfillment or honorably overcoming a handicap or hardship, or about generosity of spirit. "The cynical and indifferent know not what they miss," said John McCain while running for office in 2008. "For their mistake is an impediment not only to our progress as a civilization but to their happiness as individuals."