The euphemism of all euphemisms. Quality of Life is one of those business buzz words that gets people all warm and cozy singing kumbaya around the campfire.
I don’t know about you, but I live in the real world. Corporate dumbo-bable never really appealed to me. When I first heard about “work life balance,” another attempt at the great corporate compromise, I wanted to vomit. Don’t get me wrong, there are companies out there that do a good job of taking care of their employees, but gone are the days of the gold watch and full pension. So it’s on the employee to guarantee their future…
HR departments everywhere promote webinars about life satisfaction and balancing “work Tim” with “non-work Tim.” Then someone came out with the concept that balance wasn’t realistic and ones work and home selves shouldn’t be at odds – enter “work life integration” (here’s an article about it from the Harvard Business Review). Even that began to lose its appeal as the millennial in me crossed paths with the gen-xer in me (im an Xenial apparently).
When I really started to dig into what Quality of Life means for me, it really turned into more of a mountain to climb. Why am I working, what is the money for, and where and what do i want to be when I am all grown up (65-75ish?).
You may have heard its not the destination, its the journey that counts. Well that is a literal translation about what Quality of Life means for me – its the quality of life along the journey to those larger life goals of impact and legacy.
This forced me to think introspectively about my life goals. One of my favorite people summed it up pretty well:
“When you die there’s going to be a tombstone. It’s going to have your name. It’s gonna have the year you’re born and the day you die. In between there’s going to be a dash. And that dash is going to represent everything you did in your life, good and bad. That’s how you’re remembered. What do you want your dash to represent?” – Tim Tebow
What the heck are we working so hard for? Why do we really want to do with our lives? What does it all mean.
For my wife and I, we really took time to analyze this whole question. We have arrived at a vision statement that helps keep things in perspective for our family.
Success for us will be enjoying our grandchildren as they are raised in stable Christian homes.
With a guiding vision like this we know the mountain we are climbing. We can frame our other decisions around this broader vision for things like the home we live in the job we do or the things we want to buy. This statement of vision is loaded with smaller goals and milestones, of course, and it can even be a bit overwhelming to contemplate, but for us, it helps us reduce pace in this marathon. No amount of hurrying will get us to this destination faster. It is what is is.
So what does quality of life mean?
To us it means that we know where we are going and we better model the type of relationship, lifestyle, public life, professional brand, financial life, health life that is worth repeating. Because if we aren’t living a life worthy of emulation from our kids… then what is the point.
We decided to “start with the end in mind”, think about what 65 or 70 looks like? What are the things that will be most important for you then? The house you live in and the toys you have accumulated? The balance in your 401(k)?
Should you instead ask about what the quality of your relationships are like? How involved are you with your children’s lives? did you raise them to kick them out or did you raise them to share in life together at all phases – childhood, adolescence, teen, young adult, newly married, new parents and so on…
To get to your senior years and maintain relationships like this it takes intention, it takes a strong “no muscle” and you must certainly learn to not care about nearly as much as the world says you should.
To help us meet our goals we create Margin in our life’s routine to provide time to breathe and address the ever changing circumstances. We also have stone like commitments that the rest of our life coalesces around. Things like family dinner time, church attendance, gator football viewing (just seeing if you are paying attention), weekly extended family dinner, etc.
So, what are you working so hard for? what will your dash mean? what type of man, husband, father, friend, professional, mentor will you be? Who will you build up and who is going to want to replicate the way you lived your life?
Once you can answer the question, then you can understand what I mean about living a “Quality Life.”
It is a personal question and requires a personal answer.