"I Think I'm a Flourless Cake"
I received an e-mail with the following subject line: "I think I'm a flourless cake." It was a callback to a recent blog post, where I used an analogy of baking a cake with all sugar and no flour, you know, because sugar tastes awesome and flour tastes gross. In my illustration, this is the equivalent of living a life that heavily overweights leisure and relaxation (the sugar) vs. work and impact (the flour). Just as a cake baked with all sugar would be disgusting, so too is a life built primarily around leisure and fun. The sugar is what makes life taste good, but the proper ratio of flour is what makes it moist and delicious.
The writer of this e-mail explained to me how much my flourless cake analogy struck him. It was almost as if I was staring into his soul. He said his family and personal life are amazing, but he hates his job. He's one of those people who craves Fridays and hates Mondays. But that's ok, he thinks to himself, as his crappy work situation doesn't define him.
This has led him to the point, like so many others, of glorifying retirement in the pursuit of far more sugar and much less flour. After all, sugar tastes good and flour tastes gross. In his mind, if he can just make as much money as quickly as he can, so he can invest as much money as quickly as he can, he can retire as early as he can. Boom, problem solved.
Enter my recent blog post, a "wake-up call," as he puts it. Is swimming in misery for the sake of expediting a retirement really the most meaningful approach to life? Until recently, he believed so. But then, as he thought about what actually makes life meaningful, this idea of merely living a life of leisure sounds equally unappealing. His twisted perspective is setting himself up to endure many more years of misery, followed by a meaningless life of leisure.
What's the solution? Here's what he said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I need to just live a meaningful life right now. It's hard to quit racing toward retirement, but maybe I'm defining success in the wrong way."
A meaningful life isn't defined by money, stuff, status, or a retirement age. It's defined by having the right ratio of sugar and flour. It's waking up each day knowing today is going to matter, and going to bed at night excited for what's to come tomorrow. Not just two days per week, but every day.
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