As anyone who has been following this blog knows I’ve been on a bit of journey of (self) discovery to figure out life beyond work. After 25 years of non-stop work I made the decision to take a year off to spend time with my family- and myself. Nine months in I can say it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I’ve just started to read this book: Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
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It encapsulates so much of my thinking in the past year.
Here’s an excerpt from the Huffington Post about the book:
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“The Third Metric has four dimensions,” she explained to Walters. “The first is well-being and health, because if we don’t nurture ourselves, if we don’t renew and regenerate ourselves, then obviously we are going down a dead end.”
“The second one is connecting with our capacity for wisdom,” she said, “because so often, especially now with this addiction to technology, we find ourselves so disconnected from ourselves that we don’t know who we are.”
Wonder, the third dimension, emphasizes the need simply to stop, look away from our screens and experience the world around us. An over-reliance on technology can cause us to miss the moment and prevent us from truly thriving. “Even the good moments that celebrate us, we are hardly there to enjoy it,” said Arianna.
She considers giving, the final dimension of the Third Metric, to be the shortcut to happiness. It is by connecting with those around us that we leave a legacy — something far more important than a resume by Arianna’s standards. “We spend so much of our life polishing our resume, and that often means missing that inner journey,” she said. We should focus instead on experiencing life with loved ones, because when we are gone, they will care far more about what we meant to them than what we meant to our jobs.
“It is a huge delusion to think that in order to succeed, you have to drive yourself into the ground,” said Arianna, addressing the current model for success designed by men. Rather than working 24/7, crashing and then bragging about it, we ought to give attention to getting enough rest, so we can be present and exercise good judgment in the moment.
Arianna believes that we are all works in progress. In the end, success should not be measured by a single point in our lives, but by the ways in which we choose to live and how we connect with our inner selves. “Life is a huge classroom, and everything that happens is what needs to happen to get us to the next step of our evolution,” she said.
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The book (so far) encourages me that a return to work doesn’t mean having to give up the rest of my life. It feels like there is a new movement afoot: sanity in the workplace.
A great idea worth spreading…..
life on the slow train 