Socrates is quoted by Plato as having said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Over the last 10 days or so I’ve had the opportunity to think about this quite a bit. As the last couple of posts indicate, my good friend of nearly 40 years, Mike Katke was killed in a motorcycle accident about a week and a half ago; I was honored by the family to be asked to lead the memorial service. I’ve been following all of the Facebook postings of Mike’s friends, talking about what he meant to them and how his life affected theirs; Mike was a special man who was extremely highly regarded. My personal recollections only reinforce that impression; we shared great times over the years at Metagenics and I can attest to the significance of his many contributions as well as his character.
One of the things that the death of a friend will trigger is introspection. It’s hard to imagine that anyone confronted with such a tragedy would not then turn their attention inward and wonder if their own life is meeting the standards they set for themselves.
So how would you “examine your life?” I suppose some would look at their accomplishments or how much money they have, but I think a much more important consideration is who they are, not what they have achieved. Of course what one achieves could be used as a yardstick for who they are, but I think it’s a pretty crude measure and not very accurate. I know a fair number of wealthy people and a lot of “good” people and don’t see any correlation. Not that wealthy people are not good people necessarily; just that there’s no correlation.
It strikes me that an examination would begin with the obvious character markers: how do I measure up to characteristics like honesty, loyalty, integrity and generosity? These are pretty universal; most people would like to think that they exhibit them, and I’m no different. But let’s take a look at one of them. Integrity is not that much of a challenge when things are going your way, but integrity in the moment is probably a better way to think about it. Do you (do I?) show integrity to my standards/principles even when it’s not popular, or might be awkward, or when no one is looking? There’s a TV show called “What would you do?” where the producers stage a situation to see how the random passers-by will react. They’ll have a person tie up a dog or lean a bicycle against a fence and leave, then have another person come and pick up the dog/bicycle while recording the response to people sitting nearby who’ve watched the whole thing. Obviously if you knew you were being filmed, most of us would step up to stop what’s going on. Balanced against that is the “It’s none of my business” mentality. Interesting test, in any case.
But there are other facets of “an examined life.” What are things that are important to you? Do you have close friends? Close friends that you keep in touch with? I find that’s one of the things I need to work on. It’s too easy for me to allow day-to-day priorities to get in the way of my friendships. I have lots of good friends, many of whom I have reconnected with at the three (yeah, THREE) funerals or memorial services I’ve attended in the last week. So I’ve committed to make a special effort to stay in close contact with more of my long-term friends.
And not just the occasional Facebook “like” or “poke.”
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer.
Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.
An examined life
Socrates is quoted by Plato as having said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Over the last 10 days or so I’ve had the opportunity to think about this quite a bit. As the last couple of posts indicate, my good friend of nearly 40 years, Mike Katke was killed in a motorcycle accident about a week and a half ago; I was honored by the family to be asked to lead the memorial service. I’ve been following all of the Facebook postings of Mike’s friends, talking about what he meant to them and how his life affected theirs; Mike was a special man who was extremely highly regarded. My personal recollections only reinforce that impression; we shared great times over the years at Metagenics and I can attest to the significance of his many contributions as well as his character.
One of the things that the death of a friend will trigger is introspection. It’s hard to imagine that anyone confronted with such a tragedy would not then turn their attention inward and wonder if their own life is meeting the standards they set for themselves.
So how would you “examine your life?” I suppose some would look at their accomplishments or how much money they have, but I think a much more important consideration is who they are, not what they have achieved. Of course what one achieves could be used as a yardstick for who they are, but I think it’s a pretty crude measure and not very accurate. I know a fair number of wealthy people and a lot of “good” people and don’t see any correlation. Not that wealthy people are not good people necessarily; just that there’s no correlation.
It strikes me that an examination would begin with the obvious character markers: how do I measure up to characteristics like honesty, loyalty, integrity and generosity? These are pretty universal; most people would like to think that they exhibit them, and I’m no different. But let’s take a look at one of them. Integrity is not that much of a challenge when things are going your way, but integrity in the moment is probably a better way to think about it. Do you (do I?) show integrity to my standards/principles even when it’s not popular, or might be awkward, or when no one is looking? There’s a TV show called “What would you do?” where the producers stage a situation to see how the random passers-by will react. They’ll have a person tie up a dog or lean a bicycle against a fence and leave, then have another person come and pick up the dog/bicycle while recording the response to people sitting nearby who’ve watched the whole thing. Obviously if you knew you were being filmed, most of us would step up to stop what’s going on. Balanced against that is the “It’s none of my business” mentality. Interesting test, in any case.
But there are other facets of “an examined life.” What are things that are important to you? Do you have close friends? Close friends that you keep in touch with? I find that’s one of the things I need to work on. It’s too easy for me to allow day-to-day priorities to get in the way of my friendships. I have lots of good friends, many of whom I have reconnected with at the three (yeah, THREE) funerals or memorial services I’ve attended in the last week. So I’ve committed to make a special effort to stay in close contact with more of my long-term friends.
And not just the occasional Facebook “like” or “poke.”
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.