Category Archives: Work and Career

“You Have to Do What You Enjoy!” Three Great Tips for Making the Most of Your Work Life

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Harry, 76, told the Legacy Project about his work life and what made his career successful and fulfilling. Good lessons for all of us trying to succeed in the world of work.work

1. Having worked as a psychology professor, university counseling center director, psychologist in private practice, and as a management consultant engaged in leadership development, I have learned that you have to do what you enjoy. We spend a great deal of time at work. If it isn’t enjoyable, isn’t stimulating, isn’t fun, if you don’t enjoy the people you work with, if it doesn’t have meaning for you, then find something that does. Life is too short to do something you don’t like and enjoy.

2. When engaged in your work, put your full amount of energy into it. I have worked with people who have regretted decisions about their work and their lives. It’s better to take the risk than to wait until later in life and regret not taking the chance.

 3. Give the gift of feedback. Many of us may shy away from giving critical feedback in the workplace. Some of us may shy away from giving positive feedback. If individuals have no awareness of the impact of their behavior, how can they change it? Awareness is necessary for change. Positive feedback helps to reinforce the behavior. The awareness that one may give to another is a gift, even though it may smart in the giving.

Learning to Live in the Moment: Why Not Do It Now?

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John MacGregor, 70, lived much of his life looking toward the future, striving in his distinguished academic career. His lesson is to learn to live more in the moment. He learned this in his sixties, but suggests younger people learn it sooner.

I don’t say people shouldn’t think about the future. But when you really give yourself up to the present, when you’re in the room and you look around you, and there are other people in the room and you’re able to really zero in on those other people, and being able to really sense what they’re feeling and tap in to their own presence, then it’s not aimless at all. You feel very connected, very grounded, and it’s energizing. So you receive energy by making those connections in the present moment.

And it’s not just with people. The same thing is true with a walk in the woods. If you can really open yourself up to hearing the sounds and smelling the smells, and feeling the touches, the wind, and all those things, then you increasingly feel like an integral part of that system, so that you too have feelings, and they begin to connect with what’s going on around you. You may feel small, but it’s not a very frightening smallness. Instead it’s a feeling of being a part of a larger something. There’s a connectedness that is very, very reassuring. So that’s what I mean by being present and being connected to now.

I think you inevitably look at the future, but to the extent that you can still appreciate what is going on today and at the moment, then exactly what that future is going to be continues to be an open question, and that openness I think has great value. You’re allowing in some sense your intuition to play a role, and not being afraid that somehow that intuition is going to compete with and overwhelm your reason. That the two can work together, and support one another, influence one another.

It’s not easy, particularly for those of us who spend a lot of time in academic institutions or other jobs where the rational part of you is applauded. Living in the present and enjoying life isn’t something that you complete, or accomplish; it’s something that you strive toward, something that you work on, something that you engage with. It’s a process, at least in my experience.

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Luck, Flexibility, and Keeping Your Options Open

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Mara’s life wasn’t always easy, but adversity taught her three very important lessons for living.good luck

I can summarize the lessons I have learned in 71 years of life. I’ve had two marriages: the first one unsuccessful and the second spectacularly successful for the past twenty years. I have two daughters and two stepdaughters and have excellent relations with three of the four. I also have six grandchildren. My husband and I agree that the most important things for a happy life are: luck, flexibility, and keeping one’s options open.

First, luck. No matter how conscientious and hardworking one is there is a limit beyond which one has absolutely not control. One’s health, circumstances, and children are subject to all sorts of outside influences. A catastrophic illness, accident, job dislocation, etc. can wreak havoc with one’s best laid plans. As far as children, no matter how carefully one supervises them at home, once they are away from hoe, other forces come into play and one can only hope that they do not come to harm. So it pays to be lucky!

Second, flexibility. To build lasting relationships with loved ones and to adapt to unforeseen problem situations one has to be flexible. You must be able to “roll with the punches” or you will be broken by them.

Third, keeping one’s options open. Often one is faced with forks in the road, choices which must be made. If one is wise, one will try not to leave oneself with no other recourse. It is not true that one can always retrace one’s steps. So one must carefully weigh the possible consequences of one’s actions. When I found myself with two young children in an unfortunate marriage, I was fortunate that I had the educational background to get a job that enabled me to obtain a divorce and support myself and my family. If I had not had this background life would have been far more difficult for us all. And that is why I always stressed to my daughters that they have a good education.

If You Hate Your Job: Get Out

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Miriam has had several careers in her 72 years. She was a single parent for years, then she went to college and has worked as a writer,

trainer, and counselor. Miriam knows first-hand the difficulties of finding meaningful work while being under financial pressure to support a family.

I’ve had a very fulfilling career. It’s ongoing, still. It was the most important thing to find work that fit my principles. My life is about compassion and integrity and love and mostly service. It’s an important choice and a decision that I made. You must make wise career choices when you’re young.

If you fall in a career and you know that it’s not your cup of tea, if you did it because of your parents, or you thought it was what you wanted and you were wrong – get out right away! Because our lives are made up of two important things: work and love. If one of those is off balance, you know, you have a problem.

Jack’s Lesson for Living: Guest Blog from Summer Intern!

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Thanks to our summer intern, Laura Museau, for learning Jack’s lesson for a happy old age, and sharing it in this guest blog!

It is said that experience teaches wisdom. During my time with the Risk and Resiliency Internship Project, I had the good fortune to have been taught wisdom by listening to the experiences of older adults. The Legacy Project interviews that I conducted this summer contain valuable information that will be useful as I journey into adulthood. One of the key themes discussed by those I interviewed highlighted using passion as a guiding force in life. Passion can make the difference between living a life filled with regrets and one of contentment. For even if accomplishments fall short, the heart’s desires have been satisfied.

The thoughts that Jack Bronsen, a writer from southern California, shared with me expressed this best. He was clear that having something that he is passionate about has been the critical factor in having a good quality of life in older age:

At the end of your life or in the latest years is when you look back and you assess what was important. I was passionate about my work. I still am. I did a specialized type of drawing, still doing it, for almost 60 years: making India ink drawings of inventions for patent attorneys around the country. I loved to play golf. I still do even though I’m in my 80th year. I don’t do it very well but I still do it twice a week and I do walk a full course.

I love to write. I’ve written 3 novels and quite a bit more as a restaurant reviewer and newspaper columnist. I’m also passionate about acrostic puzzles which I love to do. I do the New York Times one every other week on Sunday.

My father loved his work. He worked until he was 82. Then he retired and he watched television all day. He went straight down hill. And the same basically happened to my mother who lived to that same fine age of 91 but did not seem to have any real passions. And they both kind of faded away mentally and that would be my concern: that if I let go of my passion, I let go of my mind, of my life.

He emphatically stated that each person should “have something you are passionate about. All through your life. Not a person, but something that you do yourself that you love to do.

A Young Person's Dilemma: Readers, Can You Advise Him?

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At the Legacy Project, we sometimes receive questions from readers seeking wisdom about decisions they are making. Often, they are trying to apply the advice from the book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans to their own lives. But of course, that book can’t deal with every specific situation, and sometimes we take their questions to you, our readers – and you have always come through!

Do you have any advice for this student who is making a difficult career choice? Please let him know your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Dear Legacy Project:

First off all, thank you for your book “30 Lessons for Living.”  It has helped me out as a 22 year old! If you do not mind, I have a question regarding that topic and would greatly appreciate a response!

I am curious as to one of the lessons in the book: choosing a career for intrinsic rather than financial rewards. I totally agree. However, I am in a dilemma. I am thinking of pursuing a field which many people around me (family, some friends) consider to be “not worth it” due to job outsourcing of industrial jobs, instability of job market (for example, lay-offs in the industry I would be working in), and rather low pay. Simply googling the field I’m considering will bring up many discouraging, negative posts talking about how it is not worth it and is a bad decision for both academia and industry!

 My reasons for pursuing that field are simply that I love it very much. The passion is there. Do you believe that the experts would still persuade me to follow such a path given the risks? Or would they say that one can develop new passions?

A career advice you do not mind giving me would be very greatly appreciated!

Okay readers: You thoughts?

Learning to Live in the Moment: Why Not Do It Now?

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John, 70, lived much of his life looking toward the future, striving in his distinguished career. His lesson is to learn to live more in the moment. He learned this in his sixties, but suggests younger people learn it sooner.

I don’t say people shouldn’t think about the future. But when you really give yourself up to the present, when you’re in the room and you look around you, and there are other people in the room and you’re able to really zero in on those other people, and being able to really sense what they’re feeling and tap in to their own presence, then it’s not aimless at all. You feel very connected, very grounded, and it’s energizing. So you receive energy by making those connections in the present moment.

And it’s not just with people. The same thing is true with a walk in the woods. If you can really open yourself up to hearing the sounds and smelling the smells, and feeling the touches, the wind, and all those things, then you increasingly feel like an integral part of that system, so that you too have feelings, and they begin to connect with what’s going on around you. You may feel small, but it’s not a very frightening smallness. Instead it’s a feeling of being a part of a larger something. There’s a connectedness that is very, very reassuring. So that’s what I mean by being present and being connected to now.

I think you inevitably look at the future, but to the extent that you can still appreciate what is going on today and at the moment, then exactly what that future is going to be continues to be an open question, and that openness I think has great value. You’re allowing in some sense your intuition to play a role, and not being afraid that somehow that intuition is going to compete with and overwhelm your reason. That the two can work together, and support one another, influence one another.

It’s not easy, particularly for those of us who spend a lot of time in academic institutions or other jobs where the rational part of you is applauded. Living in the present and enjoying life isn’t something that you complete, or accomplish; it’s something that you strive toward, something that you work on, something that you engage with. It’s a process, at least in my experience.

Putting Money in Perspective

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Many of the elders grew up in the Great Depression, and they knew what it was like to live on almost nothing. But there was something else they learned: you could be very happy with almost nothing if you had a loving family, a supportive neighborhood, and you weren’t competing with a lot of other people who had more than you did.

Maybe this is why so many of the life lessons of the elders had to do with not over-valuing material things. They don’t want us all to be starving artists, but they want you not to be ruled by possessions or an overwhelming urge to make money.

Ed, 76, a retired engineer, told me:

You don’t want your things to own you. The best example that I can give you is my mother and father. Their house was their idol. All the stuff in it was pristine and laid out and my mother saved every book she ever read, every lesson plan, everything she’d ever done, and the house was chock full of all kinds of stuff. Some really good stuff, but, after my father died we took a few things and all the rest went into the dumpster. All that worry, all that thought. And it’s hard to shake. You look at all the stuff and think ‘all this crap owns me, I’m a prisoner of it.’ There’s a lesson in this that I hoped I’ve learned while I’m still alive. I’m not owned by expensive things because they’re expensive.

Micah, 77, stressed not choosing work just for the paycheck:

That was always the way people that measured a success when we were young. Some people went to college but most people went to work. They got a job and went to work, and everything revolved around ‘what are you earning? what are you making?’ and stuff like that. So  the more money you made the more successful you were. And that became of more importance than ‘what should I do with my life? what do you want to develop? what do you want to learn?’ But by learning and experiencing that part of your life, you’re going to be doing something you like doing, you want to do, and money follows. Money follows.

That’s the way it works. And if money doesn’t follow, you’re doing something you like anyway. When I was a kid, down the street we had a shoemaker. He was a father with his kids and they all did the shoes, leather soles and stuff, and they were a pretty cool family. They loved working there. They were making shoes and fixing shoes. So there’s ways to be happy without having to be this big shot corporate guy.

Overcoming Obstacles for Success – Advice from Grace

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Here’s our first guest blog from summer intern Ariana Wolk, who interviewed Grace, age 79, about her lessons for living. Grace learned to never give up on a dream while creating a pre-school for young children. Thanks, Ariana!       

Grace raised her children in Brooklyn, where she still resides with her husband. Throughout childrearing, Grace embedded the importance of education in her children’s minds, and encouraged them to use family trips as inspiration for school reports and assignments. Grace’s strong belief in education led her to found a school in her neighborhood.

To this day, Grace is the principal of the school and actively works with the children to ensure they receive the highest education possible. Grace’s early struggle – but ultimate success – in getting the school up and running is a testament to the willpower she exemplifies.

 Grace ran into a few obstacles along the way. Despite the setbacks, her desire to provide a place of enrichment for children helped her overcome the struggles. Grace told me:

Do not let anybody tell you you can’t do it. If you feel you can do something and you’re positive about it, whatever the business is, if you believe in yourself and you think you can do it, you will do it. 

And Grace didn’t let anyone tell her she “couldn’t do it!” When the building she wanted for her school was too expensive, she figured out a long-term payment plan with the landlord. When the city objected to the use of the building, Grace went to directly to the mayor and got his permission. When Grace found out she needed more education to run the school, she went back for her masters degree. Her belief in herself and desire to start this school led her to take action and build the establishment that still exists today.

 Grace’s determination deemed benefits for the entire city of Brooklyn. Grace explained:

 It took me five years to get out of debt. But I didn’t care. I got my school. It was licensed and it was the best thing I ever did…If you were going to buy a house today and you wanted to make a school out of it, you would call downtown and use the precedence of my school! I set a precedent in the whole city. Now anyone who wants to turn a house into a nursery school just needs to follow what I did and the city can’t deny them.

 Grace also emphasized the need to choose a career for its intrinsic rewards: “You have to love what you do. You cannot be in any business if you don’t have a feeling of fulfillment and it’s only for money.” She told me that the feeling she receives when her three-year old students begin to read is defined as fulfillment. She does not work for the money—instead, she does it because she loves it. And Grace  truly practices what she preaches. Just as much as she loves instilling information in young children, she also enjoys enriching herself, and learning new things. After her first initial bachelor’s degree, grace went on to receive a Ph.D.

 If that is not genuine love for education and her profession, then I don’t know what is!

“You Can Do Anything for an Hour” – Contest Winner

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We asked young people to submit lessons they have learned from an elder in their lives, and we picked three winners. Here’s the first – a great example of what we can learn from elders if we pay attention. Danny Ellison penned this winning entry.

I learned from an older gentleman once that you can do ANYTHING for an hour.

I (a 30 year old man) was casually playing fiddle with a group of older folks at a bluegrass festival when the director of the festival came to our group and told us that there had been a health issue with one of the professional bands due to perform later that afternoon. He asked us if we would like to play in their place.

We excitedly accepted. We practiced as long as we could, and although we played well together, we were no match for the other professional groups playing that weekend. As we approached the stage for our part of the show (following one of the best bluegrass bands I have ever heard, I might add), I told my older friend that I felt like I was too nervous to play. That’s when he said, “Son, you can do ANYTHING for an hour.”

 I have since applied this wisdom to ANYTHING I dread doing and it has gone a long way in helping me put things into perspective.