Approachable Legacy
Recently had two coworkers leave my org at work, it was really interesting to see the differences between the responses of departure.
One had joined the org one or two years ago, and in terms of heartfelt email messages from others, had a hero's send-off despite the short time here.
Another had worked in the org for more than a decade, so he had objectively much more impact on the world – and though there are a good amount of emails of appreciation, it was a much more muted type of farewell.
This made me think about something – in books and talks, we sometimes encounter abstract philosophical questions that are kind of hard to relate to. For example:
“Do you want a more happy or a more meaningful life?”
Or:
“Would you prefer happiness over knowledge, or vise versa?”
It's really hard to think about these types of questions in the abstract, to the point that they aren't really compelling as thought experiments. But if we frame it as:
“Would you rather be fondly remembered by your coworkers, or have a higher impact on the world?”
Then, at least for me, the question becomes much more interesting.
To be fair, I recognize that the question is a bit of a false-dichotomy. Often times, the two doesn't really conflict all that much. But I also think it's not unusual for this choice to actually come into play every now and then, and in those situations, the choice that someone makes can say a lot about who that person is.
— Categorized under: #philosophy