Eulogy Virtues

At the funeral service for my former boss, Harry, last weekend, the rabbi quoted something from a New York Times article by David Brooks.

attribution below

Called "The Moral Bucket List," Brooks talks about the two kinds of virtues: résumé virtues and eulogy virtues.

If you've ever read an obituary, you've likely seen both types of virtues lauded. Titans of business often have lengthy obits with a laundry list of all their professional accomplishments. I seldom look twice at these. 

But I often pause and read the ones that talk about the personal achievements of the deceased. I figure that if I come away after reading it and think, "I wish I'd known that person," it means they enjoyed a life worth living.

Of course, all of this has made me do a lot of soul-searching. I remember that in my 20s, I was telling my grandmother about my accomplishments at the office. I was quite pleased with myself, but she remained unimpressed. I was frustrated. Didn't she get how cool my job was? I mean, family is great and all, but women have professions these days, and they're important.

Now, I look back and grimace. I've spent way too much time caring about my job, worrying over this project or that, ruminating about coworkers or clients on weekends when I should have been thinking about other things.

These days, I'm a little better. And I forgive myself to some degree. After all, we spend a lot of time at work, so it's understandable that it takes up so much of our bandwidth.

But I also know that's not a get-out-of-jail-free card. There's no reason I can't smile at the guy who packs my groceries and say "thank you." Or tip my server a little more generously. Hold the door for the person behind me. Or even share a little something on social media to brighten someone's day.

I've accepted the fact that I'm not going to set the world on fire. I won't have nearly the presence at my funeral that Harry did, he who truly did embrace the eulogy virtues.

But I can do better. Just don't expect me to lose the snark all at once. 

I'm only human, after all.

P.S. Here's a link to that David Brooks NYT article. It's well worth the read.

Photo attribution: Kimberly Vardeman, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.