26.09.14 by D. Paul Graham

Because Mondays are easier when the effort has a destination.

“I Fly. Because I Can.” *A jet, an open sky, and a simple thought that sometimes the best reason to go is because we can.* *Photo by D. Paul Graham, Savannah Hilton Head International Airport, circa 2015*

For over forty years, I’ve used two words as a sort of personal test. So That.

Not as a slogan. Not as a mantra. More as a way of forcing myself to finish the sentence.

I am doing this, so that... I am working toward this, so that... I am spending time here, so that...

Those two words have followed me through businesses, deals, travel, relationships, photography, writing, victories, spectacular failures, and more than a few decisions that seemed considerably wiser before they were made.

They’ve also become a useful way of separating motion from meaning because we’re very good at explaining what we are doing. We’re working. We’re building. We’re saving. We’re traveling. We’re planning. We’re creating. We’re chasing the next thing.

All part of our lives, but I think the more interesting question has always been what comes after it. So that what? Work harder, so that what? Make more money, so that what? Build the company, so that what? Take the trip, so that what? Buy the thing, achieve the title, reach the goal, and fill the calendar, so that what?

Forty years of asking that question hasn’t necessarily made me any wiser, but it has made me more suspicious of activity without purpose. The French have a more elegant expression for the idea. Raison d’être. A reason for being.

I have always preferred my two-word version. So That. Less poetic perhaps, but wonderfully unforgiving because once you say those words you are compelled to finish the sentence. Every now and then, the answer tells you whether you’re simply filling your life, or actually living it.

This morning’s M5T presents no grand rules, no formulas for enlightenment. Just five reminders that the things we do ought to lead somewhere worth going.

1. WORK SO THAT YOU CAN LIVE. There’s nothing wrong with ambition. I’ve been ambitious since I was a kid. Back then, the stakes were lower when success could be measured in baseball cards, bike speed, and who called shotgun for the front seat. As I’ve grown up, the stakes have changed but the ambition remains and I see no compelling reason to stop now. Ambition builds companies, creates opportunities, funds adventures and allows you to order the bottle of wine without first studying the right-hand side of the menu.

The trouble begins when the means quietly becomes the end. We work to earn money. We earn money so that we can create freedom. Freedom so that we can choose how we spend our time. Time so that we can spend more of it doing things that make our lives interesting.

Somewhere in that sequence, however, it is remarkably easy to become very successful at earning while becoming increasingly poor at living. The goal was never simply to fill the calendar. The goal was to build a life worth putting on it.

2. GO PLACES SO THAT YOU SEE DIFFERENTLY. Travel has always seemed to me less about collecting destinations than collecting perspective. You go somewhere unfamiliar so that your familiar world looks slightly different when you return. A street in Hong Kong. A café in Paris. A racetrack in Italy. A road through someplace you can’t pronounce and probably shouldn’t have attempted in the rental car they gave you.

The best journeys rearrange something inside us. They remind us that our routines are not universal laws. That other people eat later, drive faster, worry about different things and somehow survive without the exact coffee maker we’ve convinced ourselves is essential infrastructure. We travel so that the world becomes larger.

With any luck, our certainty becomes a little smaller.

3. MAKE THINGS SO THAT SOMETHING REMAINS. One reason I love photography is that a photograph is evidence that you noticed. A moment happened. Light fell a certain way. Someone laughed. A race car came through a corner in the rain.

For one small fraction of a second, you were paying enough attention to say, “that, right there, keep that.”

Writing does much the same thing. So does painting, cooking, gardening, building furniture, making music, creating. Anything created. We make things so that some small piece of the way we saw the world outlives us. Not everything we create needs an audience. Some things simply need to exist because making them made us more alive.

4. LOVE PEOPLE SO THAT LIFE HAS WITNESSES. I think one of life’s great, underrated luxuries is having people who know your whole story. People who remember earlier versions of you. Who knew you before the title, the business, the successes, the failures, the gray hair, or whatever indignity gravity has most recently introduced.

We have dinner. We make the calls. We linger over coffee. We trade ridiculous texts, questionable memes, and the occasional message that requires absolutely no reply. Mostly, we show up for those we love. Not because relationships are another item to maintain, but because life feels fuller when someone else can say, “I remember that too.”

A wonderful life experienced entirely alone would somehow feel lacking. We need people who can say: “I remember that.” “I was there.” “You absolutely did not say that.” And occasionally: “You may want to reconsider that shirt.”

Living fully isn’t only about what happens to us. It’s also about having people beside us who help turn those moments into memories.

5. LEAVE ROOM SO THAT LIFE CAN SURPRISE YOU. This may be the most difficult one for those of us who enjoy plans, calendars, spreadsheets and the comforting illusion that the universe has agreed to our itinerary. It has not.

Some of the best parts of life arrive unannounced. An unforeseen conversation. A surprise detour. A photograph you didn’t intend to take. A person you didn’t expect to meet. An invitation you almost declined. A road you turned down simply because you had time.

If every minute is optimized, there’s nowhere for serendipity to sit. Maybe we need a little unplanned space in our lives. An afternoon without an objective. A trip without every restaurant reserved. A walk without counting the steps. Time deliberately left inefficient. All so that life has room to surprise us.

That may be the larger point. A fuller life is not necessarily created by doing more things. Perhaps it comes from understanding why we are doing the things we already do.

Two small words with a rather large question worth finishing the sentence. So that...what?

Here’s to a week of well-defined So Thats.

Paul continues to chase ideas, light, fast cars, worthwhile work, time with LA in our tree house, good stories, and the occasional outrageous Barolo. All because life should be measured by more than meetings on a calendar.

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