Sabbatical Update: How to Gracefully Exit the Hamster Wheel of Success

Sabbatical Day 43.

In preparing for this sabbatical, I read countless articles and blog posts on “how to take a sabbatical.”?Nearly every one recommended some form of sabbatical reading, for leisure as well as professional development.

For the past 30 or so years I haven’t done much leisure reading.?Law school and the practice of law robbed me of my love of reading. After all, I read all day for work, who wants to read even more in their spare time??Instead, my spare time is occupied by podcasts, periodicals and an occasional nonfiction book (via Audible). I decided that during my sabbatical I would try to do some old-fashioned reading. ?Real books, with words printed on actual paper. ?

My friend and colleague Hunter Traynor challenged me to read more works of fiction.?I’ve never been a fan of fiction, figuring there are so many great non-fiction books I still need to read and learn from.?I begrudgingly accepted the challenge and agreed to read one book of fiction for every nonfiction book I read on sabbatical. I even agreed to read Hunter’s pick for me, Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms,” as my first book (great writing, tragic ending). While I got off to a really slow start, I was motivated to finish it so that I could get to a nonfiction book.

My nonfiction list is steeped with books focused on the point of life I presently find myself in.?The one I tackled first was “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life” by Arthur C. Brooks. While not a religious book, the title comes from Psalm 84:5-7 and Brooks borrows heavily from the insights of the Apostle Paul, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas in addition to stoic philosophers.?A social scientist by training, Brooks previously ran the American Enterprise Institute and presently teaches Leadership and Happiness at Harvard Business School.?

The book, filled with empirical data and historical and contemporary anecdotes, was somewhat of a "tough love" wakeup call for me.?With chapter titles ranging from “Your Professional Decline is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think” to “Kick Your Success Addiction” to “Ponder Your Death,” Brooks addressed many of the issues I have sought clarity on as I enter the next phase of my professional life.

The impetus for the book was a conversation Brooks overheard from the seats behind him on a redeye flight from Los Angeles to Washington DC.?The conversation, which sounded to Brooks to be between an elderly couple, involved what he assumed was the wife trying to convince her husband that it wasn’t true that he was washed up.?At one point the woman said to her husband, “stop saying it would better if you were dead.”?Listening to the conversation, Brooks envisioned the man was someone who had worked his entire life in relative obscurity, was disappointed in dreams unfilled, and possibly was someone whose career ended with no fanfare and little to show for it.?When the plane landed, Brooks had the opportunity to glance at the couple behind him and was shocked to see who it was.?While Brooks declines to identify the man by name, he states:

I finally got a look at the desolate man.?I was shocked: ?I recognized him—he was well-known; famous, even.?Then in his mid-eighties, he has been universally beloved as a hero for his courage, patriotism, and accomplishments of many decades ago.?I have admired him since I was young.

As the elderly man deplaned, fellow passengers recognized him and the pilot came out of the cockpit to express his admiration.?Now the man—who hours before was telling his wife that he wished that he was dead—beamed at the recognition.?

Brooks, then 48 years old, couldn’t get that scene out of his mind.?How could this elderly man who had achieved so much in the world’s eyes and was universally admired be so unsatisfied with his life??Brooks began to examine his own life, even pulling out a professional goal list he had prepared nearly a decade prior.?At the time he prepared the list he concluded he would truly be happy and fulfilled if he met every goal on the list.?By age 48 he had met or exceeded all of them yet found himself unfulfilled. ?He describes this as the “striver’s curse”:

People who strive to be excellent at what they do often wind up finding their inevitable decline terrifying, their successes increasingly unsatisfying, and their relationships lacking.

Brooks uses a metaphor that hit home with me:?he calls this never-ending pursuit of professional achievement the “hamster wheel of success.”??Since I first started, I've often thought of the private practice of law as a “hamster wheel”:?we meet or exceed the required minimum billable hours for the month or year and then we get back on the hamster wheel and keep doing it.?Month after month.?Year after year.?

Then Brooks posits the thesis of his book:

Was there any way to get off the hamster wheel of success and accept inevitable professional decline with grace? Maybe even turn it into opportunity?

I guess we'll see. More insights from Brooks and other authors on my reading list will be forthcoming. Now off to tackle my next work of fiction: The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton.