Things That Actually Matter
Today I received a letter from a friend of mine named Charly.
I have known Charly seven years at the time of writing; his wisdom helped me through a very difficult situation with work years ago and has guided me since. As a result, I was delighted to find a letter from Charly waiting in my mailbox this weekend. Among the many laugh-worthy passages in his letter (including an anecdote about an elderly lady muttering “hurry the fuck up” to children in a doughnut shop), I would like to pass on one small facet of Charly’s wisdom.
Lists that do not matter
In the letter, Charly mentions a writer named Charles Krauthammer, who wrote a book named Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics[1]. Krauthammer was a psychiatrist-turned-political columnist for many publications over the course of a career spanning nearly 50 years.
From serving as a member of President Carter’s administration to providing commentary as a nightly panelist on Fox News, Krauthammer’s book is a memoir of sorts, highlighting his favorite writing up to 2013 (Krauthammer passed away in 2018). Things That Matter is a 404 page book — two and a half inches thick, as Charly put it. He read it cover to cover.
True to its title, Krauthammer’s book skillfully describes things in life that matter (at least to Krauthammer). At 404 pages, Krauthammer clearly believed many things mattered. After finishing the book, however, Charly sat and pondered — as he often does — and surmised that Krauthammer’s list didn’t matter (at least not to Charly). In fact, Charly figured he could create a comprehensive list of things that did matter in about three pages.
The point was not that Charly didn’t care about life, society, or the world any longer, despite having celebrated his 72nd birthday this past October. He had simply gained a different perspective having been on the planet as long as he has. While there are certainly things that do matter to him, the list of things that don’t matter is much longer. It is here that I believe Charly’s wisdom becomes apparent.
Making poor assumptions
Charly’s apathy toward Krauthammer’s list should not come as a surprise — each of us has a unique identity that we alone must express. It would be foolish to assume what mattered to Krauthammer matters to Charly — or to me or to you.
Yet each of us makes exactly that assumption on a daily basis. We assume that what we care about will be of value to those around us, and we expect them to value it as fervently as we do — the more, the better.
But these unreasonable expectations continue to cause familial and political woes. They cause misunderstandings, conflict, loss, and depression. We believe the world does not understand us, that we are doomed to live an unfulfilled life.
On the flip side of the poor assumption above, we also become the targets of unreasonable expectations. Despite our best efforts to value what others would like us to value, we invariably fail. We are told that we ought to enjoy family and country, the fashion of the day, social media that quacks distress unceasingly from our cell phones.
Yet many of us do not enjoy any of that. Instead, we guiltily attend events (such as this past Thanksgiving), buy the newest toys marketing firms tell us we need, and hit “Like” over and over on posts about things that matter to others, never enjoying ourselves at all. We do not stop to think why malaise sets in.
Finding our own things that matter
Our highest goal must be to understand ourselves — to create, to understand, and to express the identity that only we possess. Nobody can tell you the things that matter, but if you expect anything to matter, it is your task alone to find out what they are.
Each of us must explore what is presented to us daily, judge it for content and meaning, and reject it if we find none. Only by exploring our likes and dislikes — what makes us feel a sense of wonder, what surprises us — can we uncover our deepest-held beliefs. Only then can we express the identity we know hides inside us, but are frightened to let loose.
There is a modicum of hygiene and legal obligation expected in civilized society, to be clear. But to put it simply, it is not worth doing things that don’t make you feel alive, not even if you really think you should.
It is only moments of enjoyment that are worth doing — the moments that are worth remembering, not the moments we experience behind the screen of a cell phone.
Nobody benefits from a depressed person slogging through life — certainly not the person who is depressed! Yet everybody benefits from that same person being who he or she or they is intended to be. The energy from happy, inspired people can do no less than make the world a better place for everybody — including the people who will be disappointed when you disagree about the things that matter.
