“Huntington Hartford, who inherited a fortune from the A. & P. grocery business and lost most of it chasing his dreams as an entrepreneur, arts patron, and man of leisure, died Monday at his home in Lyford Cay in the Bahamas,” reported The New York Times in 2008. “He inherited an estimated $90 million and lost an estimated $80 million of it.”
Don’t Spend Your Life Making Up Your Mind
When you think about your life and your career, are you surrounded by a thicket of “have to’s”? I have to have a steady income. I have to have the respect that comes with a business card from a leading-edge company. I have to, not I want to. The have to’s can keep us trapped on a path that doesn’t fulfill us, or prevent us from making a choice that would free us. And so we waffle and agonize, putting off making a life-changing decision until another day. Part of the problem is that in our culture, “What are you worth?” is a question about your finances and utility, not your character. To be a “success” means you have more at the end than you did at the start. What if we let go of this assumption? We might just find that we have more freedom to choose the lives we want.