David O'Hara

20-year plan

Sep 10, 2016 ∞
An Examined Life
Today is the anniversary of an accident in which I was pretty badly hurt.  As I said in a previous post, soon I'll write more about that injury and what it has meant for me.  For now, let me focus on the positive: I'm alive, and I'm slowly recovering. And I am grateful for what I have: for my wife and children, who have been supportive and patient as I heal; for my friends who were with me when I was injured and who got me the help I needed; for caring doctors, nurses, and physical therapists; for colleagues and friends who have gone out of their way to help me back to my feet; and for people near and far who have cared for me in small ways and large.  To all of you: thanks. 

Someone asked me this week, what will you do to commemorate the day of your accident? Here's my answer: today, I am enjoying being alive.  I went to the gym with a friend, I got vegetables from our CSA at the Farmers' Market; I spent time in the garden; and I spent some time thinking about what comes next.

Plato famously wrote that Socrates said "An unexamined life is not to be lived by a human being."  By that I think he meant that if we have the opportunity to examine our lives and we do not, we are missing something important.  I don't know if animals examine their lives (I suspect some do, but it's hard to know); and I do not know if God examines the divine life as we might examine our own.  Aristotle says in several places that it is human to ask questions.  The beasts don't know the questions, and the gods already know the answers.  We find ourselves somewhere between them; we have the questions, but not the answers.  To examine one's life is to attend to the questions.

So here is what I am doing, a year after my brush with mortality: I am asking questions.  I've heard it said that when you suffer a great loss, it's good not to make big changes for the next year. Allow the shaken world to settle again, take time to find your sea legs, and then, when you're feeling more able to sway with the waves, scan the horizon.  I don't offer that as good advice for everyone, but there seems to be some wisdom in it nonetheless: over the last year I've returned to it repeatedly when I feel restless, and it has helped me to have a calendar-plan.  When I feel like making a change, I say "Give yourself a full year." If nothing else, it has calmed the waters a bit, and given me ease of mind.

Two years ago I wrote another piece for this blog about my "twenty-year plan."  As I look back on it, I still think the stars I chose to steer by are good ones.  Now, as I examine my life, I am adding two things: a five-year plan, and a seven generations plan.

The five-year plan is this: the one-year calendar has been helpful, so now I am giving myself a five-year calendar.  I am eager to use my days and years well, so for the next five years I will continue to examine my life and to ask: am I using this time well?  I don't mean I'll be spending five years in omphaloskepsis. What I mean is that I don't plan to leap into something new, but to tend the tiller of my life, and to do what I can to steer the best course.  That's still a metaphor, I know.  Bear with me.  I'm still working out the details.

Some of the details are clear, though.  What I said two years ago remains true.  Here's what I wrote then:

* I want to be more in love with my wife, and to be helping her to be glad to be in love with me twenty years from now;
* I want to continue to learn new things;
* I want to live near my kids for at least part of every year;
* I want to earn what we need, and to be a generous giver to those who have a hard time doing so.
Now I have some things to add, but I will sum them up in this: I want to invest for seven generations.  That is, I don't want to be so focused on the urgent things that clamor for my attention that I lose sight of those things of enduring value.  Imagine designing a building, as Gaudí did in designing the Sagrada Familia, that you will never see completed.  Imagine building the seed-vault of Svalbard, something that you hope will never have to be used, but that is an investment in those who might come after us.  This is what I want to imitate; I want to invest my time and skills in things that will be a gift to those who come later.  It's not that I want a shrine to my name; I don't care about that.  It's that I want to leave behind something worth inheriting, even if I am forgotten by those who receive it.

So I have no big changes in store, but I have a star to steer by, one that's too far away for me to reach, but by whose light my eye glistens with delightful anticipation.  Let the examination continue, for the sake of living well now, and for all the years - and generations - that I have before me.
Jun 18, 2014 ∞
The Twenty-Year Plan: Pick A Star To Steer By
Often, when my students ask me what they should write their term papers about, I ask them to take the long view.  What have they been studying that they will want to remember twenty years from now?  Write about that, I say, and write for the sake of yourself, twenty years older than you are now.

It's probably frustrating to hear me say that, because I haven't really answered the question.  If you came to me looking for me to name a topic, you left disappointed.  I've only converted your question into another question.

But I hope the new question is a more helpful one.  What do I want to know twenty years from now?  What kind of person do I want to be then?  What would I like that person to remember?




This is a hard thing to do, to imagine yourself twenty years older than you are now.  Twenty years ago my image of my life at mid-career was at best very vague.

But it does not take long to discover that for most of us life is full of very urgent pressures.  Student loans come due.  Our employers demand that we produce certain results that may be only indirectly related to accomplishing the goals we have set for ourselves.  Paying my taxes doesn't directly contribute to my long-term plans except by keeping me out of jail.  And if you marry or have children that, too, will quickly complicate your life.

I can't sort all of life's complications out for you, but I can offer you some advice: form a twenty-year plan.  Take a little time, right now, to ask yourself: where do I want to be in twenty years?  

And then do that again and again as often as you can for the rest of your life.

Here's the thing: don't worry about whether you'll actually get there.  None of us can see the road ahead.  At most, we see a few steps ahead and we guess at what lies beyond them.  We are like travelers in a dark land, where the road is obscure and all we can see is the twinkling sky.

Well, then, pick a star to steer by.

It may be that you will cross one of life's horizons and that star will no longer be visible.  Okay.  But you can see it now, right?  So follow it faithfully while it shines the brightest.  Set a goal - I want to be out of debt, I want to be working with people I like, I want to earn enough to support my family and give charitably, etc - and then ask which direction you'll have to step in to move closer to it.

Because the alternative is that you will constantly be looking down at your feet, at the urgent matters of where to step next.  And that is, after all, pretty important.  You don't want to turn an ankle or step off a ledge.  But if you're always looking down at the urgent things, your neck will bend and get used to that angle, and you'll have no idea where you're going or how you're getting there.

So look up, pick a star, and follow it.  And then keep looking up.




*****


A hypocrite is someone who tells you to do one thing while doing another.  If you're wondering, yes, I have a twenty-year plan.  And it undergoes constant revision.  It's always changing, and yet, as I compare versions of it, I find that there are constant themes, like these:

* I want to be more in love with my wife, and to be making her glad to be in love with me twenty years from now;
* I want to continue to be learning new things;
* I want to live near my kids for at least part of every year;
* I want to earn what we need, and to be a generous giver to those who have a hard time doing so.

These aren't the specifics, but some of the general themes that keep emerging.  One great thing about allowing yourself to revise your twenty-year plan is that you won't go crazy trying to do what turns out to be impossible.  Another is that these patterns will emerge that will help you to know yourself and your deepest values a little better.

I am wishing you the best on your journey as I write this.