Living in a World More Focused on Means than Meaning

I remember lots of tears that spring. Surprising for a guy who doesn’t cry much. My world was crashing down on me in 2008. As a hotel entrepreneur, we were a canary in the coal mine as we experienced the early punishment of the coming Great Recession. My long-term relationship was on the rocks. I was in the midst of a confidence crisis and had started reading Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” one more time to remind me why I was here.

My mirror, Chip Hankins, who not only shared my name, but also my curiosity with life was who I would occasionally turn to in my existential woe. Chip was a friend and my insurance agent. A San Francisco Bay Area guy who decided to transplant his family to his wife's native country, New Zealand. We had fun plotting a worldwide "Chip party" some day. Chip and I had much more in common than just our names. We were both publicly extroverted but had an introverted melancholy side, too. I always admired his life as a seeker, as he was a certified spiritual advisor who performed marriage ceremonies for many friends, as did I.

And, yet, on April 30, 2008, Chip took his life by hanging himself in the large tree in front of his family’s home. I heard this news as I was about to step on stage to give a speech in St. Louis. As I gave my speech, I immediately visualized that tree as I’d been down there to visit Chip, his wife, and two boys just a couple years earlier. Chip’s memorial service was traumatic for me. To hear person after person get up and tell "Chip stories" was surreal. Even though they weren’t talking about me, it was almost too much to handle. I broke down and cried uncontrollably holding my partner's hand for dear life.

During the next two years, four other friends, college or business school classmates of mine - all men in their forties - committed suicide in the Bay Area. In this era of Facebook transparency, I felt that much more responsibly regretful when I would look back at the past few weeks of Facebook postings from friends who had passed. Those of us left behind by the person who had taken their own life can pour over a digital graveyard of ominous postings or odd musings, trying to detect the signs that our friend was in his final days. My intrigue was more than a function of trying to understand their pain and what I might have done to help them. I was also sympathetic to the path they’d taken as a means of quieting the chaos or horror they felt inside. Chip and my four other friends started to represent a private club to me…one that I might consider joining.

I spent the first half of 2008 contemplating my own escape. I talked openly with a few friends and colleagues about how the idea of a car accident or a bout with cancer might help me get off the unrelenting treadmill I was on. I needed some kind of excuse to be less responsible for holding the world on my shoulders. I didn't talk suicide with anyone at that point, but I privately pondered "the bridge." Ironically, there was a beautiful painting of the Golden Gate Bridge in my office and a friend of mine had recently produced an independent documentary called "Joy of Life" about the phenomenon of Golden Gate jumpers (ironically, my hotel company was called “Joie de Vivre”). On a particularly bad day, I would imagine myself at the bridge with its picture-perfect, Chamber of Commerce view of San Francisco in the background, wondering what the newspapers would say when this San Francisco hotelier took his own life at the city’s biggest tourist attraction.

It took a form of divine intervention for me to pull myself out of that emotional tailspin. I broke my ankle playing baseball at San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s bachelor party in July 2008. It turned into a bacterial infection a week later which led to strong antibiotics. And, then, just three and a half months after Chip’s death, I was once again in St. Louis to give a speech. This time on crutches, antibiotics (to which I may have been allergic), and feeling very little joie de vivre. At the end of my speech, I fainted and was unconscious for a few minutes. My heart stopped just as the paramedics arrived and, after a few hours in the emergency room and ICU, I found myself in a quiet hospital room with Frankl’s book in my hand thinking about Chip.

I spent the night up imagining the horrors of being in a concentration camp and comparing this with feeling like a prisoner of my own mind. Somehow, I was able to distill Frankl’s message to an emotional equation that served as my mantra through that dark time and to the present nearly ten years later: Despair = Suffering - Meaning. Once I came to the conclusion that Suffering was a constant in life and Meaning was the variable, I was able to see that finding the meaning, the lesson, or the wisdom ? even in the most difficult times ? was the means for me to reduce my despondency.

While the circumstances of my life remained challenging for the next couple of years, somehow, I found a new resolve, a new “joie de vivre” that helped me make it through the bottom of my later forties’ nadir of the U-curve of happiness. I also needed to extricate myself from the career and personal identity I'd created. I bet there are many people out there in silent desperation because their historical identity - as the founder of a company or as an on-air celebrity - feels so affixed that it's smothering them. Just like the changeable weather, my life has vastly improved in my fifties, although that’s not necessarily the case for those diagnosed with lifelong depression.

Two weeks ago, I made the pilgrimage to Chip’s home in New Zealand almost exactly ten years after his death. I enjoyed a family dinner with his wife Phillipa, his son Cam who was only 7 when Chip passed, and one of Phillipa’s best friends. Chip's presence was at the table with us as Phillipa still lives in that same family home, although the tree has been replaced with a pool. I only wish Chip knew what psychic debt he placed on his family and close friends who will never truly understand why he took his life. I don’t think Chip would have taken this action if he’d recognized just how confusing and painful it is for those who remain. I wish I could have shared my emotional equation with Chip.

And, then, just in the wake of this trip while I’m still traveling internationally, I hear of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain taking the same path as Chip. And, I’m left with the question, "How do we make the pursuit of meaning as important as the pursuit of happiness?" Happiness lives on a rollercoaster, that often tracks our career and relationship peaks and valleys. But, meaning can be found anywhere, in a concentration camp, in a hospital room, at a dinner table, even in a corporate boardroom. Viktor Frankl once lamented, “People have enough to live by but nothing to live for: they have the means but no meaning.” This is the predicament of modern man. Once we’ve addressed our basic needs in life, what do we strive for? This is the kind of question we ought to be talking about at our dining table with family and friends as well as in the workplace. My hope is that in sharing this article, it will prompt more of those kinds of conversations. Feel free to share with others.

Chip Conley is a New York Times best-selling author and veteran hospitality executive who renewed himself in midlife by collaborating with the Millennial co-founders of Airbnb to create the world’s largest global hospitality brand. His new book, Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, is now available.