I spend a lot of time in my work as a therapist digging for meaning with people. It’s particularly important in this community, where smart people are earnestly searching for purpose, and trying to figure out how to focus on their next act.
Let’s take the example of Terry, who came to me with a powerful sense of failure. He was 45, married with two children, Michael, 9, and Charlotte, 6. He had been working in Silicon Valley for nearly twenty years, first in caffeine-fueled startups, and now as a project manager at a more established company. By now, he was convinced he should have stock options worth $8-$10 million, as several peers had. He saw this lack not as a shortcoming of the companies, but as proof that he himself was inadequate. The belief was intransigent.
I pointed out numerous times that he’d done very well, supporting his family very comfortably. He owned a house worth a couple million dollars, drove a nice car. He was in a tiny sliver of 1% of the world’s population. This did not register at all.
I took another tack, wondering how many of his peers – competent, intelligent, hard-working – had not hit a $10 million jackpot. Were they all failures?
“Of course not,” he replied. But this did not change his self-assessment.
Now here’s the thing – Terry was a very insightful and compassionate person. He’d made real progress in other areas of his life. But this conviction of his financial failure seemed unshakable. Eventually, convinced his resistance was tied to deeper issues, I began to explore meaning. I asked why making the money was so important.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Imagine I’m much less intelligent than I look,” I said.
He chuckled, and said he wanted his family to have the things they wanted. And yet, we soon agreed they already had most of this, both possessions and opportunities.
I dug deeper.
“What would that $10 million mean?”
“That I was a success,” he said immediately. “That’s how we know, right?”
Ah! This might be something. Wealth is a main indicator of worth in our society. So we explored thoughts about approval – from peers, his parents, elementary school teachers. Soon we stumbled on the detail that his wife had never viewed him as less than for not making millions. If anything she wanted less focus on work.
I approached from a different angle.
“What would you do with this money Terry? I assume you don’t just want to look at the number in your bank account.”
“Leave it to my children. So they know I loved them enough to set them up.”
Again, this seemed like a pretty reasonable explanation. And again, I refused to accept it as bedrock.
“Do they know that you love them now?”
Here he paused, and I could see difficulty behind his eyes. He started to speak, stopped, then started again.
“I guess so. Maybe in the background, but not all that engaged.”
“And leaving them money when you die would, what…?”
“It would tell them that their father was there for them,” he said.
Here, finally, we were getting somewhere tender and close to meaning.
“Terry, will you go on a little journey, maybe a difficult one, with me?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Close your eyes, and imagine you’ve gotten very old,” I began. “You’re lying on your bed too tired, too weak to get up. Right here is where your life will end, soon. Imagine the room, the light from the window, the color of the walls. Your children are there. One is holding your hand. The other kisses your head. They pass out of the room thinking you’re asleep. But you can hear them in the hallway, and a small voice, one of your grandchildren, asks ‘Tell me about grandpa.’”
“Imagine their answer, Terry, maybe your son, maybe your daughter. Imagine exactly the answer you would most hope for. What do they tell their children was so wonderful about you?”
He sat silently, wrestling with emotion.
“Terry, what are they saying?”
“That I loved them. That I was there,” he said quietly. “That we laughed, even just cleaning the house together. Or playing in the park”
I asked gently, “Terry, did they love you because of the money you left them?”
He shook his head.
“Terry, your career is important. But it seems like the things you truly want for your children require less time in the office and more time just being with them. Cleaning the house. Laughing. Going to the park. Does that seem maybe true to you?”
He began nodding and didn’t stop for some time.
We could read this as a fairly familiar story that embraces values of family and love over success. What I want to emphasize instead is how hard it can be to find out what one truly values. Layers must be stripped away. The first thing that comes to mind is usually not the core value. It may be some manifestation of it, but isn’t usually solid enough ground upon which to build the next phase of one’s life.
If we don’t do this tedious and sometimes emotionally fraught work fully, we risk settling prematurely. We get a glimpse of something important and, because many of us have been trained to be both insightful and efficient, we operationalize very quickly, setting goals and making plans. But this is a place where reflection is often far more important than speed.
Fortunately this work is eminently doable, particularly with the help of a good therapist, coach, or simply a good friend willing to help us sift through the many layers that we have accumulated during our lives. The effort can be challenging and exhilarating. But the end result, I have seen time and again, is far preferable to the false starts or wrongly directed endeavors we easily undertake if we hurry. Given the preciousness of our time left, digging all the way to bedrock is essential.
-Ben
Ben Yalom is a psychotherapist, creativity coach, and writer focused on helping people align their living with their core values. He is the co-author, with his father Irvin D. Yalom, of the international best-seller Hour of the Heart: Connecting in the Here and Now. Prior to becoming a therapist, he was the visionary force behind foolsFURY Theater Company, which helped transform San Francisco’s performing arts scene in the early 2000s.