What should one strive to accomplish in order to have a fulfilling life?

What is the meaning of life?

             I am not sure that anyone is qualified to tell another how to live a “fulfilling life.” Do not misunderstand; I feel that I have lived a life that was fulfilling for me. I also think I know why my life has felt fulfilling and I will address that below. However, I would not expect that what made my life feel fulfilled would necessarily apply to anyone else. For reasons addressed below, I think fulfillment takes many forms and defies an apt generalization.

          The “meaning” of life seems a very different question than a “fulfilled life” although I may come to see their connection as I work out a response to your questions. At the outset of responding, I think no human can provide a meaningful answer other than the Creator of life. Suffice it for now to say, the meaning of life is for each participant to play its role – flora and fauna alike.

             Why do I think I have lived a fulfilling life? It is certainly not because my life has been mistake-free. I have made many mistakes some of which make me shudder at my stupidity or carelessness. And therein lies my first rule to living a fulfilling life – be prepared to forgive yourself for making human mistakes so long as they were not intentionally hurtful to some one else. Do not get me wrong; mistakes I have made have very definitely hurt others – part of the reason I characterize them as a mistake – but the mistaken word or action was never “intended” to be as hurtful as it turned out to be. So, above all else, forgive yourself for being human and move on with your life.

           That being said, what made my life fulfilling for me was that (1) I loved my work and (2) I loved my family.

          It is easy to say that I loved being a lawyer for over 44-years. I could not believe people paid me the money they did for having so much fun. I went to bed thinking about a case and how to win it and I awakened thinking about a case and how to win it. Sixty-to-one-hundred-hour weeks of working were never drudgery – it was always the search to know everything there was to know and to find a winning strategy that withstands the most brilliant of counterarguments. The victory in the courtroom was a reward. The journey to that result was what was fulfilling.

          What was not so easy, was finding joy in the various odd jobs I did to get through college and law school. Reading reams of computer paper of the responses of patients or students participating in studies to questions posed by professors in the Psyche Department at Harvard for 15-hours a week was tedious. But to be effective at achieving the results you were hired to do (circling and tabulating the number of certain types of response) you had to pretend you were the professor reviewing your results and reach your own conclusion however misguided and misinformed you were. The 15-hours per week selling tickets at the local movie theater from one to four on five weekdays was a piece of cake and provided substantial time to read your classroom material. Plus, you were able to watch Lawrence of Arabia several times and simply forego the studies that day. Finally, the greatest fulfillment in attending cars in a parking lot on Sunday for twelve hours starting at seven in the morning was that you were being paid to sit studying 90% of the time. Needless to say, Sunday was a slow day in Harvard Square.

           The five-months that I taught high school math when I was twenty was even more fulfilling that the other part-time jobs. I could not wait to get to school and teach each day’s classes with the game-plan I had put together overnight. It helped that all but one of the classes involved what were then called “College Prep” classes. I set up the problems on the blackboard and called upon the students to teach the other students the correct answer to each problem. The most difficult problem was teaching the students to politely allow one of their fellow students to complete their presentation before pointing out that there was a mistake in the first or second step of their logic.

            Watching students teach each other was not only fun, but you could see a sense of teamwork developing among the students. They began working together to avoid a fellow student’s embarrassment at a mistake in the front of the class. (I had to monitor one hour of study hall each day and could see my math students paired off – one smart one with one less smart – obviously going over the assignment for the next day in case either was called upon.) How could you not go to sleep thinking about the classroom and awaken to the same vision each day.

          The point – find a way to love what you are doing to make a living. Life is so much happier when you look forward to your workday.

           The final aspect for me was that I have always loved the people in my family. It started with my parents and my brothers. It easily expanded to include my grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Later, I never met a first cousin that I did not love. So, before I ventured out on my own, I already had a group of over twenty people that I loved for all the countless different aspects they all brought into my life.

             I have also loved the family I created or adopted over the years. I am fairly confident that my ex-wives did not feel loved (although they were) and even more confident that they hold me in disdain. However, looking back, I understand how we came together and why we did not last. There is a child who would claim I hurt her, but I do not feel guilt over the circumstances that she would set forth as the misadventure on my part that led to her sense of injury. While I am sorry that she feels that way, I do not regret anything I have done for her through the years. Otherwise, I have acted throughout my life with love for the new family members as they have joined my journey. Accordingly, even that part of my life feels fulfilled even if not supported by some of those who participated in my journey.

            I think it helps that I have seen others live what seemed “fulfilled” lives and have seen others who seemed unfulfilled. For example, my maternal grandfather, who we all called Pop, was a railroad engineer. He had graduated from high school and immediately begun working on the railroad. His wife, who we called Mom, had quit school in the fifth grade in order to attend to the health of a sickly mother.

            I think if you had asked either one of them just before they died (she at 96) had they lived fulfilling lives their answer would have been in the affirmative. They were happy rearing four children all of whom received college degrees – two with high honors. Their only son was killed in World War II. While this loss hurt for the remainder of their lives, they did not let it slow down their resolve to work hard and stay active in the affairs of their community with smiles and encouragement. They always seemed proud of their children and their grandchildren.

          On the other hand, my father and paternal grandfather seemed to be living unfulfilled lives to me. By the time I reached high school and spent two summers working for my Dad researching law and facts for his cases, I thought I had identified the problem. Both were way too smart for the challenges presented by their work. Car wrecks, divorces, wills, in other words the mundane jobs of a small town attorney posed no challenge to their intellects whatsoever. It was the first sign to me that it would be better to face tasks that seemed beyond my reach than tasks that were so easy I could handle them in my sleep.

         And, for the most part, that was the role that befell me. I always was assigned the task of guarding the other team’s best basketball player – whether he was 5’9” or 6’5” – and I loved the challenge whether successful or not. Later, to defend Price Waterhouse in a securities fraud-accounting case with zero background in business or accounting was a monumental task and one I felt beyond my grasp for weeks as I studied accounting and auditing literature, as well as the business of leasing telephone systems (because to understand the financial statements involved you had to understand the details of the business transactions that generated the numbers for those financial statements). From that start over the next 42-years there were a number of people in the profession who labeled me “the father of accounting defense.” Meeting challenges – whatever form they may take – is a significant element in living a fulfilled life.

            Now, the “meaning” of life. God failed to bless me with a helpful response. For as long as I can recall, the word “life” for me has included trees, plants, grass, wheat, corn, watermelon, lions, tigers, bears, cockroaches, ants, humans, and water. I have never stopped marveling at how plants absorb the carbon dioxide that animals exhale and repay the animal world with oxygen without which animals could not exist. I still avert my eyes when the Discovery channel shows another cat (lion, tiger, or leopard) attack and kill another type of deer. However, I never blame the attacker because without that food the cat could not survive. It is simply a fact of life.

            While the word “life” for me has always been synonymous with the planet, I am not on the Al Gore “Save the Planet” team. Earth has a shelf life of four or so billion years. Long before the atmosphere is likely to be too toxic for life, Earth will need to find a way of dealing with a population growth that far exceeds its ability to provide sufficient food. Far more dangerous than carbon emission is the indiscriminate deforestation underway throughout the planet. It would be one thing if it was being done for more land to farm, but more often than not it is being done to provide more living space for the increasing populations. However, I will leave that to the planet itself and to the Creator. Humans seem incapable of working out a reasonable solution.

           The meaning of life for humans has meant to me the proper provision of the ingredients assigned to you by birth and talent. From kindergarten through eighth grade, I grew up with the same group of children. We all knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We all interacted as if on a team – each supplying to our daily lives in accordance with our gifts.

          I did not distinguish the children I grew up with as boys or girls. Now I was not stupid. I knew that boys had a penis and girls did not. But that seemed to be irrelevant in our daily lives before puberty. I tended to classify each child in categories set forth below:

Smart                        Medium Smart                         Not so Smart

(Ida May, Bobby)       (Carolyn, Howell)                   (Vera Lee, Gordon)

Good Athlete             OK Athlete                              Nonathletic

(Peggy, David)          (Joanne, Herky)                      (Lois, Bobby)

Loudly Confident (insecure)                  Quietly Confident (secure)

(Dexter, Joanne)                                    (Peggy, Howell)

Very Caring                  Generally Kind                      Cruel/Rude

(Nancy, John)              (Claudette, David)                 (Darrell, Jessica)

Until about seventh grade, our teams for our games during recess were chosen by the two best athletes – Joanne and me. She did not choose all girls and I did not choose all boys. We alternated choices and always chose the best remaining athlete for our respective teams whether female or male.

             We all seemed to understand the roles we were to supply to the continuation of life in our communities. For the most part sons were going to follow in the footsteps of their father – be it farmer, car mechanic, plumber, electrician, car dealer, attorney, doctor, engineer, scientist, nurse, schoolteacher, newspaper publisher, business owner, etc. – and no one felt superior to anyone else. The less smart did not seem jealous of the very smart, and we each marveled at another’s ability to fix a carburetor. We were a team and understood a team requires linemen to block, running backs to race to glory, quarterbacks who receive most of the praise, and receivers able to hold on to catches even when hit with devastating blows. Success came only if we all did our jobs to the best of our ability. Sex, or sexual persuasion had nothing to do with achieving that success. If faced with a transgender person, they would have been judged by the criteria I set out above – not by their sexual preference or orientation.

           For most of my classmates the “team” we worked for was the United States, except for maybe Oak Ridge, Lake City, and Lafollette (our archrivals in sports). For a few – Ida May, Mary Sue, Bobby and me – the team was larger – the world. Somehow for us it seemed the world focused far too much on our differences (which we considered very few) rather than what we had in common (which included all the important parts of life).

           It was my “worldview” and all the time I spent reading about religions that led my mother to believe I was going to become a missionary. She mistook my intellectual curiosity for spiritualism. Dad understood me better. When I was ten or so I complained that people accused of murder have a right to due process which includes the right to have the prosecution prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, while my brothers and I are routinely punished without any right to a trial.

             He immediately instituted a right to a trial before punishment – a family court. The experiment ended before it started because Dad assigned me the job as prosecutor in the first case where my brother Harry’s behavior had allegedly warranted another spanking. When I resisted and insisted that I defend Harry, the right to a family trial was canceled. Dad knew I was a natural defense attorney. I hated throwing stones in my house of glass.

           As a result of this upbringing, “Life” meant supplying the ingredient assigned to me with all the diligence and foresight I could muster. I think we all took the story from Jesus about the gifts of five talents to one man, three talents to another, and one talent to the last. God expected us to use those talents fully. There was no shame to being the one given only one talent, but there was a responsibility to use that one talent as fully and joyfully as the one given five talents.

            I have always felt that one of the responsibilities assigned to humans by the Creator was the protection of the planet. Only one living thing was provided with the wherewithal to protect the other life on the planet. Humans were provided with intelligence. I have assumed that, despite the history of human violence and cruelty, we were provided with sufficient intelligence to convince each other of the importance of our guardianship of the flora and fauna that enjoy the rivers, lakes, and oceans that sustain life for both.

           On the other hand, I do not think the Creator had in mind the idiocy of the current Democratic party. In early 2020, little David became excited about investing in a company that was going to produce electric vans for Amazon. I wrote a detailed paper for him concluding that by 2035 33% of vehicles would be run on battery power assuming that the industry could produce a battery that took only 5-10 minutes to recharge; hundreds of thousands of recharging stations scattered throughout the country; and an automobile that could thus travel 750 miles per day. The paper pointed out that all the great auto manufacturers were planning for the conversion to occur in larger numbers starting in the 2030s, and that all the largest oil and natural gas producers were planning on the substantial reduction in the use of fossil fuels by 2035. The Democratic party must be bereft of business planners as in 2021 it began to institute policies at least ten-years too soon and thus created an economic environment of inflation and potential recession.

       The Government needs to stay in its lane. Private enterprise (meaning groups working together as did my grade school classmates), as usual, will find the best solutions.

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