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April 11, 2006

5:10 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

Leading Ideas: Pausing in Pursuit

| posted by Fast Company staff
"Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy." -- Guillaume Apollinaire, (1880-1918) French Poet

My girlfriend Daryn was nice enough to hit me over head with this point recently. Over dinner last week, she stumped me with a simple question. She asked, "When was the last time you can remember not thinking about your business?" I plumbed the depths of my memory, but amazingly I couldn't think of a time. I wanted to have an answer so badly, but simply didn't. It shocked me. I realized how prone I was to letting my pursuits become all consuming. It created an opening. Thank you Daryn.

Consider This:

It's easy to want more. You might want to achieve more, be more, or have more. For the most part this is good. It's the hunger that drives you to learn and grow (and the engine of a free-market society). But BEWARE - hunger also has a very dark side. It can blind you. Caught up in the pursuit of something more, you can forget how to be happy with the wonderful things you've already got. You can forget how to enjoy the ride.

Question: When was the last time you can remember completely putting down your pursuit?

Tags: Leadership
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Recent Comments | 2 Total

April 12, 2006 at 4:56am

roger fulton

this morning, to be exact. Each and every morning after I walked away from six years of Wharton School education in accounting, finance and marketing education and decided to teach Mexican kids on the border reading, writing and English.
Like this morning. Rewarding is a word that comes to mind. I am NOT hungry for my pursuits almost all the time now. It's a feeling that is common to my life, once I left the insanity -- you should try it. Marketing became a waste of time when I discovered that all you do is devolve into the insanity of bigger and better craziness into internet heaven on how to push mousetraps into the faces of teen-agers, flashing internet messages? Bouncing color coded click through widgets? THAT'S WHAT WE SIT UP ALL NIGHT AND OBSESS ABOUT? Jesus. This morning I taught a kid in 3rd grade how to do 4th grade math problems that he didn't have the self confidence to do 48hours ago. He lit up like a candle. He ran home and told his mama and she called me and cried.
No, I can't take that to the bank and sink it into Wall Street's latest portfolio offering. So what?
Roger Fulton
Yuma, Arizona

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April 12, 2006 at 11:20am

M. Russell Stewart

As Mr. Fulton describes, hunger for the right things - enduring and truly important things - is the hunger we should give into. The kind that Mr. Sundheim speaks of has an even more macabre side to it that what he described: it can turn to cannibalism, which would have us consume those things that should be the most important to us (family, friends, our own health, etc.) in the unsatiable pursuit of wealth, power, prestige, and public recognition.

Interestingly enough, prior posts from Mr. Fulton have lead me to believe that he was simply an ornery old accountant/semi-nihilist who was fed up with capitalism. Now I know that he is indeed a slightly nihilistic accountant/ marketer fed up with capitalism, but one who is doing something about it, rather than just decrying its evils.

MAS

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