I was listening to a podcast from Dan Sullivan and he dropped an utterly nauseating comment, “The definition of hell is: Your last day on Earth; the person you became meets the person you could have become.”
And while I really like Dan Sullivan in a lot of ways, and like a lot of his lessons… all I can say on this one is, give me a fucking break.
First off, that’s not hell. Hell is living a life trying impress people who don’t really care about you. Hell is alienation from friends, family, and from your own soul for the sake of worldly, superficial success. Hell is trying to fix yourself into being someone else, rather than accepting who you are and loving on it.
Secondly, what does it mean, “the person you could have become?” Isn’t potential kind of infinite? Do I get to meet every person I could have become? Though the question implies that non-billionaire Nicholas meets Billionaire Nicholas, what about all the other possibilities? Nicholas with a PhD in art history, Tuba Player Nicholas, Banjo Collector Nicholas (he doesn’t actually play, he just collects them and talks about them all the time. It’s the fucking worst). Not to mention, Addict Nicholas, Deadbeat Dad Nicholas, Homeless Nicholas, Schizophrenic Nicholas… I could become any of these people. “There but for the grace of God go I…”
And Third, I’m all for pursuing excellence and doing a good job. But it’s important to remember that even financial success has an element of randomness to it. Some people get rich doing stupid things (like that guy who became a millionaire by buying Fartcoin). Other people do everything “right” but get cancer anyway. Who’s to say my financial advising career is luckier than my career as a writer would be? Or my career as a counselor? Or a doctor? Maybe in another parallel universe I work as a teacher and have a long, boring, but mostly happy career, but in another universe I get sideswept on my way to the best job imaginable. Does that make one choice good and the other bad? No! You can’t judge by outcome. You have to judge by whether you lived true to your heart.
And here’s the thing, everyone’s heart is different. There is no such thing as the “perfect person” or doing life “perfectly.” In fact, even if we resign ourselves to doing things imperfectly, we still can’t do everything we want! Such is life.
Each day, we make choices about how we spend that day. We don’t have time for everything. We can’t go to the gym, and write a book, and learn Spanish, and master the bass guitar, and build a relationship with the partner of our dreams, and spend time with friends, and do the landscaping, grow spiritually, cook dinner, and build a multi-million dollar advisory firm. In fact, as I look over this list, I feel torn about my priorities. I think I could potentially become great in two of these areas, but only if I scuttled everything else.
But what is in my heart? Do I burn with passion to tour as a professional musician? Not really. In fact, I’m a bit of a dabbler. It’d be super fun to have a little band and chunk through some backyard concerts and even play a gig at a coffee shop. That’s a desire of mine, and I’m working towards it. But I don’t need to go down as one of the greatest bassists of all time. And it would be insane for me to sacrifice everything else in pursuit of a goal that doesn’t matter to me.
Or how about my business? First and foremost, I want to do a good job for clients. I want to be proud of the work I do and to have a positive impact. But it’s not especially important to me to make a million dollars a year. So that’s not the goal. Doing a good job is. As a consequence, I get to have a pretty balanced life, and to live without some looming sense of “underperforming my potential.” For me, a balanced life is more important. One where I can enjoy the journey, and find some moment of bliss in each day.
At my least healthy, if you’d asked me who I wanted to be, I’d have told you, “rich, making a million dollars a year as a super successful financial advisor, with a big, beautiful house, a couple kids, a gorgeous wife…” Some of those still appeal to me. But it’s not the core. My real best life is measured in how I show up. Have I been kind, loving, encouraging, honest? Fun? A good friend? I can be these things day by day, I’m not chasing some dream at the end of the rainbow. I kind of feel like the “ambitious” Nicholas of my past was wasting his life. In fact, he might be the one meeting me at the end of his life, realizing with horror the life he could have had. “You had friends? You feel secure in your love relationships? You actually enjoyed your life? Fuck! I wish I’d have known I could do that.”
My hope is that if, at the end of the life, I do end up meeting “The Billionaire Nicholas I Could Have Been,” I can greet him with a friendly smile and be happy for him and his successes, while not for a minute regretting having spent my life consciously, joyfully, generously.