How much is enough?

My wife and I were guests at dinner in the main dining room of an exclusive, gated, private community.  After a short time the woman sitting next to me blurted out, “My God, you don’t know how great it is to see a new face… hear a new voice… with new stories and new ideas.” On the drive home I wondered if any of these people had ever asked the question that Peggy Lee asked in her memorable song, “Is That All There Is?” Had they ever paused long enough to question the significance, or lack of it, of their daily lives?

How much is enough?

How many cocktail and dinner parties are enough, with the same people…same jokes… same stories… same trivia… same clichés… same gossip… same boredom. Have they realized that the rut they are in has evolved into a trench?

The distinguished actor, Anthony Hopkins, put it bluntly in an interview. “My wife and I stopped going to cocktail or dinner parties years ago. We got sick of the phony, ‘hello daaaaaaarling! How good to seeeee you.’ It made us gag.” Hopkins went on to use such strong language to express his disgust that I cannot print it.

How much is enough?

How many cars are enough? How many homes are enough? How many closets full of clothes are enough? How much jewelry is enough? How many golf and tennis games are enough before a person finally decides to do something significant? Many people know, through their consciousness that they have painted themselves into a corner and even their Rolex and Jaguar is depressing.

How much is enough?

I will tell you about a friend of mine. He was one of the most respected heart surgeons in Beverly Hills, CA. He “retired” to a resort community in the central mountains of Idaho. That is where I knew him. He told me he had dreamed of a life of skiing and golf. He had done that for two years. He called one morning and said, “Bill, can I come over and talk?” I said “sure.” He told me about his problem. He said, “Bill, for two years now I have gone skiing every day in the winter and golf, or tennis, every day in the summer. I thought it was going to be ‘heaven.’ It has turned into ‘hell’ …how I am wasting my life and use of time. What do I want on my tombstone, ‘He never missed a tee time’? I must start spending my days in ways that will make a difference.” We talked about it. His decision redirected his life into choices that made a difference. He would golf one day a week, ski one day a week in winter, spend three days a week in Boise at the Veteran’s Hospital giving his time free. With the time left he would return to substantial reading and study to keep his mind sharp and growing. It worked. He told me later that he was “genuinely happy again.”

You may not have heard of William Mellon, heir to the Mellon fortune. He and his wife were in the international jet set until they stopped one day and asked the question: “Is that all there is to life before we die?” They thought not.  Mellon had just finished a book on the life of Albert Schweitzer and the work he did among the sick and poor in Africa. Mellon and his wife entered medical school in their 40s at Tulane University. After graduation they opened a clinic in Haiti, an area that was lacking all medical services, much as Schweitzer had done in Africa. They said that for the first time in their life, the days became filled with genuine joy.

How much is enough?

What empty place in the soul are so many trying to fill? It is a spiritual problem. I chose that word “spiritual” as the only correct word to define the frenetic and frantic search to fill the emptiness.

One of my heroes, Federal Judge Learned Hand, said this in a commencement address at Bryn Mawr College. “Since we became Homo sapiens, there never has been so many people who felt alike… thought alike… ate alike… slept alike… hated alike… loved alike… wore the same clothes… read the same books… saw the same movies… built same houses with the same furniture… believed in the same God… and were all confidently assured that this was the realization of the human ideal.”  I am going to tell you a true story about a meeting one day in Santa Rosa, CA in the retirement community of Oakmont. I started a Sunday Symposium there in 1990. It is still going… alive and well. I will never forget one day at the tennis courts. A man came up to me in tennis clothes, introduced himself and said this to me: “Bill, I have heard your Symposiums are wonderful but I will tell you why I don’t come.” I waited. I could hardly believe my ears. This is what he said, “I’m retired now and I do not want to think anymore about serious things and people tell me at your Symposium you have to really think.”

Arthur Miller was asked to state the main point in his magnificent play The Death of a Salesman. “Easy” he said. “Willy Lowman, the salesman, came to the end of his life and realized that he had missed the point.”

What a tragedy to come to the end of your life and realize that you had put your ladder up against the wrong wall.

Is that all there is? How much is enough? Hell is life drying up. Faking it has become a way of life. Imitating others… “daaaaaaaarling.” Living an IN-authentic life invites the hell. How much is enough?

There will never be enough to fill an empty soul, until genuine love and significance fills the hours of our days.