We all want to live a “good and successful life.” As the double-edged sword that it is, I do believe technology has arguably made defining these terms much more complex than before due to the accessibility of information and influence to nearly everyone, everywhere. Now what “good” and “successful” mean to each person is of course different. Hopefully, you’ve defined what this means for yourself.
With my grandfather’s funeral during last week’s President’s Day weekend, I believe I found my definition of a “good and successful life” and the answer to a similar question “What is important in life?”
Context – My Grandfather’s Funeral
For the funeral, a bunch of family (aunties, uncles, siblings, first cousins) flew in from the mainland and outer islands. Despite the solemn reason for their visit, because of how often we see each other now, it’s always nice to see and spend time with them.
During the funeral my mom and her siblings all spoke, recounting my grandfather’s life and sharing personal reflections they had of him. I also spoke, giving a collective reflection on behalf of his eight grandchildren.
As I was listening to what was said, there were many details of his life I had heard before that made me smile upon rehearing. There were also new bits and details of his life I hadn’t known about or had been explicitly told before, however, made sense when analyzing his life.
Out of everything I heard that day, the one thing that stuck out was hearing my uncle recall asking my grandfather the question “What are you most proud of doing or achieving in life?” in which his answer was “his family.”
Now my grandfather was a pretty accomplished person – he had a doctorate in engineering from MIT (back in the 1950s), worked for the WHO, was recognized as Hawaii’s Engineer of the Year in 1971, was recognized as the model Chinese Father of the Year in 2003 amongst the Chinese societies in Hawaii, and lived to 102 (to a name a few) – so for him to say that he was most proud of his family made me smile and of course got me thinking.
Motivations’ and Personalities’ Role
Now I think implied in the question “What are you most proud of in life?” are two similar fundamental questions that I believe we are all seeking the answer to. Those question are “What or who is really important in life?” or “What is the meaning of life?”
Now how one answers this question is subjective to the individual. We all find and rank what we find meaningful largely based on our experiences. I also think our personality does play a role in answering this question. We do after all have different motivations based on our personalities (based on the big 5 – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism). As it seems my grandfather’s predominant personality traits were conscientiousness and agreeableness which made dutifulness and intimate relationships his biggest motivating factors.
I think for the majority of people the most intimate relationship we will have in our lives is the one with our spouse, and perhaps next to that the one between parents and their kid(s), the sum of this being the nuclear family. So it would make sense then that for my grandfather his family is what he was most proud of.
It was in his responsibility, duty to, and love for his family that he found the most meaning in life, and what was most important to him. As a result, he and his wife (my Nana) raised a very close and tight-knit family (my mom and her siblings) now extending into the fourth generation (his great-grandchildren). His reward for all of this I believe was a very joyful life, full of reciprocity and love that outshined any trouble or adversity he might’ve experienced or been going through. From as far as I can remember, he never let anything bother him. I believe he was always able to zoom out and see the bigger picture, concluding that as long as he had his family and a situation didn’t negatively affect his family it wasn’t worth festering over.
True Wealth
Now again for each person where they find meaning in life is subjective, just as many definitions we have for words representing life. “Wealthy” is one such word. Generally speaking, people’s idea and conception of wealth is within money, their material possessions, perhaps their net worth and assets, or in status and fame (which go hand in hand with money). For many, this is also their idea of “success” and what they spend a large amount of their lives chasing.
For me, the way I like to define wealth for myself comes from this biblical idea (Mark 10:17-29, Luke 18:18-30) that says something like “real wealth is what you have when you lose all your money and material possessions.” It’s those things that you do have, that cannot be taken from you where true wealth lies – the skills you have, the experiences you’ve been through, your age, health, faith, values, beliefs, and character, and the loving relationships you have with others. Unfortunately, these are also the things we easily overlook and tend to take for granted until we no longer have them.
From this idea of wealth, from having a similar personality to my grandfather, and from seeing his example and experiencing his love, I have adopted his definition of “a good and successful life,” and have decided to orient my life toward what’s important – loving relationships and family. It’s funny and somewhat ironic because pretty much up to about 3-4 years ago, I would’ve never considered this a goal or priority for my life.
I do hope and look forward to getting married and having a family one day, though I am sadly still far along in that process. From the example my grandfather set for me and from spending a lot of time observing and thinking, I believe I have a naive, yet clear idea of how I’d want to raise a family and the type of relationships I want to have with my future spouse and offspring(s). I hope too to one day have a life full of love and family just as my grandfather did. For now though, the people and relationships I do have I am grateful for and do help me in sustaining and finding purpose, meaning, and motivation.
Quick Note: On my perception of wealth, don’t get me wrong. I think money and material goods are important to survive and can help bring joy, happiness, and freedom into our lives and to those we love. I just would be cautious in putting more value into that than into the things that really will matter when we or our loved ones are suffering and in pain.
Conclusion
Anyway, this post is just a reminder (more so for me) to take a step back from the busyness of our daily lives to remember what is truly important in life and to be grateful for what is.
To end this, I’ll leave you something to consider. Imagine you are at your funeral, who would be the people sitting in those first 2-3 rows and what kind of relationships did you have with those people and what would you want them to say about you?
This scenario will is certain to play out for all of us one day so best do now and live so that your vision comes true.
P.S. If you are interested in finding out more about yourself and your personality you should check out this personality test from Jordan Peterson (and his fellow psychologist) at understandmyself.com. I believe you’ll find out a lot about yourself and it will help you knowing, understanding, and interacting other people and their unique personalities. I highly recommend it and believe it’s a great investment for yourself for $10.