A popular theme for Substack writers is to tell cautionary tales about career burnout. It’s the younger writers on this topic who particularly resonate with me. People in their thirties or early forties who have most of their life experience ahead of them, yet are already wise enough to be asking some of the most challenging questions of themselves and of their readers:
Dave, you hooked me with this one! I so appreciate your thoughtful comments about “enough,” especially at this stage of your life where you do have enough. (I’m 10 years ahead of you, as is my husband, and while he’s not an avid Substack reader I know he would agree.) I was also struck by your recounting of your relationship with your boss, a hard-driving, semi oblivious, and very successful “C” student whereas you were the “A” student who worked for him. I know finance “guys” just like that. Perhaps it’s not really true that an “unexamined” life is not worth living. At any rate, thanks for a great Saturday read.
I’m realizing as I’m reading this that my biggest problem is that I never focus on one thing at a time...one isn’t enough. If I’m watching TV, I’m also trying to read something. If I’m working, I’m also trying to pay attention to a podcasts. I’ll try and shift my focus this week and let what I’m doing be enough.
Also, Oppenheimer is very similar to the book American Prometheus. Except Kitty is more sympathetic in the movie, if you can believe that.
Dave--you ARE helping people. Your open thoughtfulness and vulnerability matters. My spouse is a man in finance and that is not a career identity that lends itself to anything but absolute impenetrable confidence and swagger. I often worry about my sons following that path. I wonder how we can rewrite that culture. Your reflections give me hope because to see a man from that world take such care means there are men like you in it. Just yesterday I wondered--what if we could move some of the second half of life reflections up into that middle of life? Especially among the “masters of the universe” types. What a world we might have.
I really enjoyed this thoughtful and insightful essay. I'm the same age as you. The question "how much is enough?" is one I often pose myself. How much money, is enough, how much free time is enough, how much of anything. In terms of money, I fall back on "a modest sufficiency" being enough, though that may also be partly that I know I'll never have more than that. Free time is more complicated. In theory, I want it all to be free (free to read, mostly, but also to think, and to write) . But apart from the need to continue working part time, I recognise I have obligations to others in terms of time, as well as money. So it's always about compromising, striking a balance and in reality it swings from enough free time to not enough, constantly. I haven't quite taken to my hammock permanently.
I remember being in the last year of training at a Psychoanalytic Institute and I was still a young man -- I came in second in a Four Wall Handball Tournament and bemoaned the fact ( in passing) to my Psychoanalytic Supervisor who was a very wise man and Director of the Institute---
He said "Number 2 is pretty good" --
I said "I should have done better"
He recommended the book Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney and in particular a Chapter entitled The Tyranny of the Should
I found it very useful at the time and never forgot some of the "lessons" in it
This is a timely piece for me. Having spent the last 24 years in military I will be retiring in about six months. My wife and I came to this decision because we were seeing diminishing returns on continued service. I have spent so much time deployed and missed out on so many family things that I began to count to opportunity cost. While I have been successful in my career and worked hard to climb the promotion ladder, the future of my career doesn't change much. If I continue serving then it means more deployments, more missed family opportunities, etc... The financial benefit of continued service does not compensate for the burnout I feel. I am in my mid-40s and I am asking myself where I can do the most good. Like everyone, I want to be financially secure but I think doing something with the second half of my life that pays off in contentment and happiness will be even more valuable than chasing promotions and paychecks.
My younger brother also retired from the Navy about a year ago. He asked many of the same questions you pose and that I am asking myself. He wanted to have an impact not just on his own family but for others in similar situations. I found it interesting that you discussed legacy because he created his own business call A Long Legacy. Obviously a play on our name but also relevant to the focus he wanted to teach others. He has a cool website where talking about his journey. https://alonglegacy.com/
Thanks again for tackling this great and timely topic. It has given me a lot to think about.
Dave, This was an excellent piece. We are about the same age but I was a professional farrier forcibly retired now. I've been thinking about being closer to the end than the beginning and legacy. Is doing your best enough? Was it all worthwhile? Why did I turn left instead of right? I feel like my obituary would only be an announcement about the time and place of the service.
I also liked the part describing your friend. I've never thought of it before but I have a dear friend going back to Boy Scouts who is exactly like that and that's why I wanted to be friends with him.
You gave me a little clarity on a Saturday morning. Thank you. John
It seems you’re still in the game at 61, Dave, so that’s not bad at all, maestro! Count your blessings before your next nap and you’ll wake up refreshed and ready to go! And btw, thanks for the recommendations. I love Laura Kennedy’s stuff so will check out the others. Here’s a football watching tip, if you are so inclined: if you’re getting Red Zone you may also be able to watch full-game replays, so if it’s a great day for a walk or some other form of enjoyable goofing off, you can catch the ball off-schedule. As a devotee of a non-local team that’s frequently blacked-out anyway I have found that a nice alternative to over-priced sports bars. As far as success goes, a few observations from another angle...
Questioning success ‘metrics’ from an early point can be helpful indeed. But we’re all subject to forces beyond our control, which is perhaps the best reason for assuming such an attitude anyway. An enviable existence might be snuffed in an instant, one brought about by the very same accomplishments that seem admirable. And that’s not meant to deride achievement per se - simply a nod to the hand of fate.
For my part, the die was cast early. My mother died of cancer when I was young - almost 11. My dad, a boarded thoracic surgeon working at the time as a GP in a tiny western town, gave up his practice and moved to LA shortly thereafter to work as an MD for hire. By the time I entered high school I was a member of an integrated step-family, a situation that lasted about 3 years. My school and the near-in suburb it served - an ‘All-American City’, according to city hall - was going through a dramatic demographic shift, and kids who went there in those years gained experience navigating a diverse sub-society decades before most other Americans ever noticed the social evolution transpiring around them. Having known exactly no one on day 1 of high school I managed to gain some great friendships and enough feathers in my cap to gain entry into a competitive public U. Lacking math chops but being able to draw, I aimed for fame as an artist. The old man wasn’t really enthused but didn’t do anything to block me, and the social security I collected as a student on my mom’s account afforded me the opportunity to try.
Fortunately it didn’t take too long to get wise, and when I got married a few years later - having acquired a distaste for corporate life in an entry level job - being a public school teacher seemed a good choice. Flash forward 35 years and I’m still ok with it. We had 3 kids and I also got an MA in art history and an admin cert along the way. Luck came and went but on the cusp of retirement I’m living in a house I like, am still married, and by the look of it both of those all that will continue, paid for adequately by a decent pension. I’ve got a couple years on you but feel like I’m also still in the game. The paintings and writing waiting for me around the corner are something to look forward to. I ended the first full day of summer at a rooftop barbecue in Seoul, where my ESL teaching son’s boxing coach and his wife introduced us to some of their friends. Among them was a sweet young woman who played the flute and dedicated the first song to me as a birthday present. She wasn’t sure of the title, but it was immediately recognizable a couple notes in: Amazing Grace. Everyone should be so lucky.
Enough! Let yourself be. I'm 75, not wealthy in the usual terms yet the loves in my life make me rich beyond compare. That is enough. I see my children as parents, raising my grandchildren. Surely, that is enough even in terms of legacy. My granddaughter uses stories I've told to make the same points I do. That is enough. My daughter, when the question came up, offered me her kidney in a NY minute (the shortest measure of time known to man). That is enough. I could go on and on about my kids, grand and Kim, the love of my life, but that would be too much. I see a world full of conflict but I see the next generation's good hearts, making their communities a better place. I have a hobby that affords me all the creative opportunity I need only steps away. I have enough. From the little bit I gather about you, David, you have more than enough not taking your business success or financial wealth into account at all. So, I say to you, enough of the chase for enough. Perhaps you already have it and what you do going forward, your wonderful efforts to help others, can simply be more than enough and wouldn't that be good?
Office Space is one of my absolute faves! Good choice here 🤭.
‘Enough’ and ‘free time’ have seismically shifted for me with my long COVID disability. My life has a clear dividing line: BEFORE, when I was an overachieving non-profit executive in crisis-based trauma work with hobbies that were nearly all physically taxing, and AFTER, when I am too fatigued to shower most days. A few months before I threw in the towel, I had just gotten a raise and was making the most I’d ever made (and probably double what I ever thought I’d make with a masters in social work). To give that up was extremely painful, especially since my husband took a planned retirement from his well-paid government job about six days after my first COVID symptom (which neither of us ever doubted I’d recover from by his last day, but here we are).
He gets a pension and works p/t, and I get private disability, but the flow of those checks is tenuous at best. They could kick me off at any time. Money is unbelievably tight. BUT, I’ve definitely learned the real meaning of “enough.” Can we pay our mortgage, feed ourselves and the cats, heat our home? Yes, for now we can. And I have more unread books than I can possibly read in the next three years and plenty of streaming options. Now, when I buy a lotion I don’t like, let’s say, I use it all up before trying something else. In the before times, I’d have donated it or just dumped it.
And I have my Substack newsletter, and great engagement there. And I have love around me - so much, from my partner, my kitties, my friends and (some of my) family. When your world closes in on you, what really matters eventually comes into stark relief.
Free time is another thing. I have tons of it, but the cruel irony is I have so little energy. It’s funny to think about multitasking, even with leisure activities, because a) my brain can’t multitask much of anything anymore and b) imagine only being able to do 2-3 “things” a day, including showering, reading, writing, watching TV (amidst the “have to dos” like doctor and lab appointments, paperwork to keep the disability $ flowing, etc. My husband reframed these for me as my “job” now, and he’s right. I earn my money by continuing to prove my worthiness for a benefit my employer paid in for me for years and years, with a condition that has no known treatments or cure, and hence doesn’t change from month to month in spite of my need to prove I still have it).
Long answer, sorry! I enjoyed this piece of yours very much. The non-profit finance agency you mentioned in the comments sounds like a great fit for you; I hope you find it fulfilling. Keep us posted on that?
Hmmm. I must confess, I found this one a bit muddled. Anyone who defines success as "how much" is pretty much doomed to disappointment, even despair. Success should not be measured in magnitude, but should be dependent on where and how you look for it. Van Gogh was deemed a failure in his lifetime, as was Manet. The great painter of the period was Meissonier. Ever hear of him? He's got a painting in the Met of Napoleon's retreat. Not bad, but he's not in the same universe as the other two.
We both write because we believe we have things to say that will make other people think about issues we consider important. How many readers do either of us need to make us successful? Or does the success come with the effort we put in to produce our work? (By the way, to me you are extremely successful. I don't read many of these but look forward to yours each week.
Dan Brown sold about a gazillion books but was miserable because among the literati he was considered a hack writer. In the end, we can only control our own process, not the result. That is not to say, of course, that ignoring results is easy. It isn't. But that makes it all the more important to judge success by the effort we put into a task we believe in, and, to the best degree possible, stop worrying how it looks to anyone else, beyond those we care about and respect the most.
Great piece. The difference between you and your former boss highlight your awareness. I wonder if it was his ambition that drove him or not having enough. Maybe they are one and the same.
It’s interesting how money looms greatest when we ask ourselves What is enough? Hubby is on a radical sabbatical pining for the day he can retire but alas we are 60 and 62 and not in the position yet. We both have always volunteered with organizations that remind us we have plenty.
I've switched careers multiple times. It's typically come down to burnout. I reach a stage that I didn't enjoy what I was doing. It wasn't enough, it was too much, my purpose changed. Here I am now, a few years old that you, enjoying another reinvention of my "self" with the luxury of being "retired" - if there is such a thing. I've always been a Type A workaholic. Slowing down has been a challenge, only managed by health issues forcing me to step back and honoring that need. Great read David!
Dave, you hooked me with this one! I so appreciate your thoughtful comments about “enough,” especially at this stage of your life where you do have enough. (I’m 10 years ahead of you, as is my husband, and while he’s not an avid Substack reader I know he would agree.) I was also struck by your recounting of your relationship with your boss, a hard-driving, semi oblivious, and very successful “C” student whereas you were the “A” student who worked for him. I know finance “guys” just like that. Perhaps it’s not really true that an “unexamined” life is not worth living. At any rate, thanks for a great Saturday read.
I’m realizing as I’m reading this that my biggest problem is that I never focus on one thing at a time...one isn’t enough. If I’m watching TV, I’m also trying to read something. If I’m working, I’m also trying to pay attention to a podcasts. I’ll try and shift my focus this week and let what I’m doing be enough.
Also, Oppenheimer is very similar to the book American Prometheus. Except Kitty is more sympathetic in the movie, if you can believe that.
Really enjoyed reading. I relate to much of what you shared (except that I have no interest in the Red Zone!)
Dave--you ARE helping people. Your open thoughtfulness and vulnerability matters. My spouse is a man in finance and that is not a career identity that lends itself to anything but absolute impenetrable confidence and swagger. I often worry about my sons following that path. I wonder how we can rewrite that culture. Your reflections give me hope because to see a man from that world take such care means there are men like you in it. Just yesterday I wondered--what if we could move some of the second half of life reflections up into that middle of life? Especially among the “masters of the universe” types. What a world we might have.
I really enjoyed this thoughtful and insightful essay. I'm the same age as you. The question "how much is enough?" is one I often pose myself. How much money, is enough, how much free time is enough, how much of anything. In terms of money, I fall back on "a modest sufficiency" being enough, though that may also be partly that I know I'll never have more than that. Free time is more complicated. In theory, I want it all to be free (free to read, mostly, but also to think, and to write) . But apart from the need to continue working part time, I recognise I have obligations to others in terms of time, as well as money. So it's always about compromising, striking a balance and in reality it swings from enough free time to not enough, constantly. I haven't quite taken to my hammock permanently.
Enough ---
I remember being in the last year of training at a Psychoanalytic Institute and I was still a young man -- I came in second in a Four Wall Handball Tournament and bemoaned the fact ( in passing) to my Psychoanalytic Supervisor who was a very wise man and Director of the Institute---
He said "Number 2 is pretty good" --
I said "I should have done better"
He recommended the book Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney and in particular a Chapter entitled The Tyranny of the Should
I found it very useful at the time and never forgot some of the "lessons" in it
This is a timely piece for me. Having spent the last 24 years in military I will be retiring in about six months. My wife and I came to this decision because we were seeing diminishing returns on continued service. I have spent so much time deployed and missed out on so many family things that I began to count to opportunity cost. While I have been successful in my career and worked hard to climb the promotion ladder, the future of my career doesn't change much. If I continue serving then it means more deployments, more missed family opportunities, etc... The financial benefit of continued service does not compensate for the burnout I feel. I am in my mid-40s and I am asking myself where I can do the most good. Like everyone, I want to be financially secure but I think doing something with the second half of my life that pays off in contentment and happiness will be even more valuable than chasing promotions and paychecks.
My younger brother also retired from the Navy about a year ago. He asked many of the same questions you pose and that I am asking myself. He wanted to have an impact not just on his own family but for others in similar situations. I found it interesting that you discussed legacy because he created his own business call A Long Legacy. Obviously a play on our name but also relevant to the focus he wanted to teach others. He has a cool website where talking about his journey. https://alonglegacy.com/
Thanks again for tackling this great and timely topic. It has given me a lot to think about.
Dave, This was an excellent piece. We are about the same age but I was a professional farrier forcibly retired now. I've been thinking about being closer to the end than the beginning and legacy. Is doing your best enough? Was it all worthwhile? Why did I turn left instead of right? I feel like my obituary would only be an announcement about the time and place of the service.
I also liked the part describing your friend. I've never thought of it before but I have a dear friend going back to Boy Scouts who is exactly like that and that's why I wanted to be friends with him.
You gave me a little clarity on a Saturday morning. Thank you. John
It seems you’re still in the game at 61, Dave, so that’s not bad at all, maestro! Count your blessings before your next nap and you’ll wake up refreshed and ready to go! And btw, thanks for the recommendations. I love Laura Kennedy’s stuff so will check out the others. Here’s a football watching tip, if you are so inclined: if you’re getting Red Zone you may also be able to watch full-game replays, so if it’s a great day for a walk or some other form of enjoyable goofing off, you can catch the ball off-schedule. As a devotee of a non-local team that’s frequently blacked-out anyway I have found that a nice alternative to over-priced sports bars. As far as success goes, a few observations from another angle...
Questioning success ‘metrics’ from an early point can be helpful indeed. But we’re all subject to forces beyond our control, which is perhaps the best reason for assuming such an attitude anyway. An enviable existence might be snuffed in an instant, one brought about by the very same accomplishments that seem admirable. And that’s not meant to deride achievement per se - simply a nod to the hand of fate.
For my part, the die was cast early. My mother died of cancer when I was young - almost 11. My dad, a boarded thoracic surgeon working at the time as a GP in a tiny western town, gave up his practice and moved to LA shortly thereafter to work as an MD for hire. By the time I entered high school I was a member of an integrated step-family, a situation that lasted about 3 years. My school and the near-in suburb it served - an ‘All-American City’, according to city hall - was going through a dramatic demographic shift, and kids who went there in those years gained experience navigating a diverse sub-society decades before most other Americans ever noticed the social evolution transpiring around them. Having known exactly no one on day 1 of high school I managed to gain some great friendships and enough feathers in my cap to gain entry into a competitive public U. Lacking math chops but being able to draw, I aimed for fame as an artist. The old man wasn’t really enthused but didn’t do anything to block me, and the social security I collected as a student on my mom’s account afforded me the opportunity to try.
Fortunately it didn’t take too long to get wise, and when I got married a few years later - having acquired a distaste for corporate life in an entry level job - being a public school teacher seemed a good choice. Flash forward 35 years and I’m still ok with it. We had 3 kids and I also got an MA in art history and an admin cert along the way. Luck came and went but on the cusp of retirement I’m living in a house I like, am still married, and by the look of it both of those all that will continue, paid for adequately by a decent pension. I’ve got a couple years on you but feel like I’m also still in the game. The paintings and writing waiting for me around the corner are something to look forward to. I ended the first full day of summer at a rooftop barbecue in Seoul, where my ESL teaching son’s boxing coach and his wife introduced us to some of their friends. Among them was a sweet young woman who played the flute and dedicated the first song to me as a birthday present. She wasn’t sure of the title, but it was immediately recognizable a couple notes in: Amazing Grace. Everyone should be so lucky.
Enough! Let yourself be. I'm 75, not wealthy in the usual terms yet the loves in my life make me rich beyond compare. That is enough. I see my children as parents, raising my grandchildren. Surely, that is enough even in terms of legacy. My granddaughter uses stories I've told to make the same points I do. That is enough. My daughter, when the question came up, offered me her kidney in a NY minute (the shortest measure of time known to man). That is enough. I could go on and on about my kids, grand and Kim, the love of my life, but that would be too much. I see a world full of conflict but I see the next generation's good hearts, making their communities a better place. I have a hobby that affords me all the creative opportunity I need only steps away. I have enough. From the little bit I gather about you, David, you have more than enough not taking your business success or financial wealth into account at all. So, I say to you, enough of the chase for enough. Perhaps you already have it and what you do going forward, your wonderful efforts to help others, can simply be more than enough and wouldn't that be good?
Office Space is one of my absolute faves! Good choice here 🤭.
‘Enough’ and ‘free time’ have seismically shifted for me with my long COVID disability. My life has a clear dividing line: BEFORE, when I was an overachieving non-profit executive in crisis-based trauma work with hobbies that were nearly all physically taxing, and AFTER, when I am too fatigued to shower most days. A few months before I threw in the towel, I had just gotten a raise and was making the most I’d ever made (and probably double what I ever thought I’d make with a masters in social work). To give that up was extremely painful, especially since my husband took a planned retirement from his well-paid government job about six days after my first COVID symptom (which neither of us ever doubted I’d recover from by his last day, but here we are).
He gets a pension and works p/t, and I get private disability, but the flow of those checks is tenuous at best. They could kick me off at any time. Money is unbelievably tight. BUT, I’ve definitely learned the real meaning of “enough.” Can we pay our mortgage, feed ourselves and the cats, heat our home? Yes, for now we can. And I have more unread books than I can possibly read in the next three years and plenty of streaming options. Now, when I buy a lotion I don’t like, let’s say, I use it all up before trying something else. In the before times, I’d have donated it or just dumped it.
And I have my Substack newsletter, and great engagement there. And I have love around me - so much, from my partner, my kitties, my friends and (some of my) family. When your world closes in on you, what really matters eventually comes into stark relief.
Free time is another thing. I have tons of it, but the cruel irony is I have so little energy. It’s funny to think about multitasking, even with leisure activities, because a) my brain can’t multitask much of anything anymore and b) imagine only being able to do 2-3 “things” a day, including showering, reading, writing, watching TV (amidst the “have to dos” like doctor and lab appointments, paperwork to keep the disability $ flowing, etc. My husband reframed these for me as my “job” now, and he’s right. I earn my money by continuing to prove my worthiness for a benefit my employer paid in for me for years and years, with a condition that has no known treatments or cure, and hence doesn’t change from month to month in spite of my need to prove I still have it).
Long answer, sorry! I enjoyed this piece of yours very much. The non-profit finance agency you mentioned in the comments sounds like a great fit for you; I hope you find it fulfilling. Keep us posted on that?
Hmmm. I must confess, I found this one a bit muddled. Anyone who defines success as "how much" is pretty much doomed to disappointment, even despair. Success should not be measured in magnitude, but should be dependent on where and how you look for it. Van Gogh was deemed a failure in his lifetime, as was Manet. The great painter of the period was Meissonier. Ever hear of him? He's got a painting in the Met of Napoleon's retreat. Not bad, but he's not in the same universe as the other two.
We both write because we believe we have things to say that will make other people think about issues we consider important. How many readers do either of us need to make us successful? Or does the success come with the effort we put in to produce our work? (By the way, to me you are extremely successful. I don't read many of these but look forward to yours each week.
Dan Brown sold about a gazillion books but was miserable because among the literati he was considered a hack writer. In the end, we can only control our own process, not the result. That is not to say, of course, that ignoring results is easy. It isn't. But that makes it all the more important to judge success by the effort we put into a task we believe in, and, to the best degree possible, stop worrying how it looks to anyone else, beyond those we care about and respect the most.
Great piece. The difference between you and your former boss highlight your awareness. I wonder if it was his ambition that drove him or not having enough. Maybe they are one and the same.
It’s interesting how money looms greatest when we ask ourselves What is enough? Hubby is on a radical sabbatical pining for the day he can retire but alas we are 60 and 62 and not in the position yet. We both have always volunteered with organizations that remind us we have plenty.
I've switched careers multiple times. It's typically come down to burnout. I reach a stage that I didn't enjoy what I was doing. It wasn't enough, it was too much, my purpose changed. Here I am now, a few years old that you, enjoying another reinvention of my "self" with the luxury of being "retired" - if there is such a thing. I've always been a Type A workaholic. Slowing down has been a challenge, only managed by health issues forcing me to step back and honoring that need. Great read David!