The Eternal Optimist: We are all going to die...

The end of the year is approaching, I’ve noted an uptick in colleagues at various firms executing on their exit plans, and even here at the Journal, Peter Nicholson’s long and illustrious career finishes this month. There is, for me, a sense of endings in the air at the moment and with it perhaps a little bout of melancholy. Are endings, though, such a bad thing, and why do we at times shy away from them?

As a case in point, I had decided to step down from a charity position at the end of this year. At a recent meeting I and my co-chair were asked to whom future emails should be sent, and I felt a slight sense of dread when I said “the co-chair, not me”. I am though delighted to be stepping away from the role, having served my time, progressed the organisation and hopefully added some value. I have a multitude of other things to be getting on with. Why, then, my feeling of dread in relation to this ending, and so many other business, personal and other areas in life when they draw to a close?

Endings are an inevitable part of life. We know both on a personal and professional level that they are unavoidable and will be forced on us either by nature or the decisions of others. For some reason, though, that is still something that doesn’t register fully, and we often delay, avoid or simply shy away from making decisions around them. We do know that if we don’t make decisions eventually, they will be made for us by circumstances, others or both. At times we seem almost happier to cede that power rather than exercise it. Why, and is there anything we could do to be more in control of this inevitability? Within the confines of this article, I’ll give a few suggestions and perhaps some things to ponder during the dark months ahead.

Two threads

Trust and control, I suspect, are two threads intertwined with many of the issues around endings. Trust that others will be able to look after things when we are gone, and control in that we will still believe we are the only ones able to direct matters in the ways we know are best.

So much of both of these, though, remains down to us and the actions that we take leading up to the end. Have we trained those remaining properly, and have we given them real opportunities to grow, and to make and to learn from their mistakes in the way that we did through our careers? If so, we should be comfortable that they can deal with what lies ahead. If not, the fault surely lies with us and the only question remaining is whether it is now too late to do so. Similarly on control, do we expect to be able to influence the actions of others eternally, or how can we equip them to make great decisions when we are no longer around? Finally, are we even best placed any more to deal with these things? On matters of technology, for example, with my mother we are considering replacing her iPhone with an abacus, and I fear that some days I am heading in that direction. The truth of all of these is as relevant to our children and partners as it is to our firms.

Have we done all that we need to do? I like to do things to excess and, in some ways, it makes stopping them easier. I got tired, bored or sick of things and was then able to put them aside knowing that I had had more than enough (or at least for that period of my life). If that applies to you and you can’t deal with the ending, then the question would be, what remains for you and what is stopping you doing it?

There is the converse position that everything in moderation might be better. Can you arrange your work or life so that you don’t burn out? Can you enjoy doing whatever it is you do for longer with appropriate support? 

Jump before you’re pushed

Fear is the root of so many things. Fear is of course irrational and often can revolve around loss. Loss of control, loss of income, loss of status etc, can all be very much tied in with our occupations. I’m very much a numbers person. I’m embarrassed to admit I have a spreadsheet and I can tell you how long I can afford to live for after I retire. What, though, if inflation stays at 6% rather than 4%, or my investments fail to perform as anticipated? That is (by my own admission) the path to madness. Life is uncertain, and while you do need to build in some wriggle room for eventualities, worrying about how you will fund yourself at 103 really shouldn’t prevent you making decisions today.

To look ahead is wise; to try and see over the brow of the hill is just stupid, and to allow fear to stop you making decisions is certainly in that latter part. If fear is holding you back from any of life’s decisions, can I direct you to a Ted talk on fear setting I mentioned in a previous article. It really can transform the way you make decisions and brings into focus that the things you are worrying about can all be identified and mitigated.

Finally, there are those of us who just don’t like to jump: we need to be pushed. That thought of leaving safe ground to jump out into the void is simply too frightening to face. At a recent HM Connect conference I was able to ask five very entrepreneurial practitioners whether they jumped or were pushed when it came to setting up their own practices. The unanimous answer, to my surprise, was that they were all pushed. Similarly, they all wished they had jumped, and jumped sooner.

There is perhaps something about that edge, the finality of crossing it, and the thought that there is no going back to what there was before. If, though, we could all reframe our thoughts about endings it might help. If we thought about endings as simply a doorway to a new beginning filled with new opportunities and challenges, I wonder whether we might embrace them better? Likewise, the road back is never truly closed (well, not all of them), and there are often opportunities to revisit or even reimagine what we did previously. For me, my excesses in sport have found me returning to them at a much more sustainable and enjoyable level in my later years. Ultimately, if we did all that came before correctly, these “roads” are unlikely to be ones that we would want to go back down again!

“There’s a trick to the ‘graceful exit.’ It begins with the vision to recognise when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over – and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.”

(Ellen Goodman)