So What's Next?

I was recently having a conversation with my Mother-in-Law about death. She’s 100 in a few days’ time. It wasn’t morbid but on her part there was just a genuine sense of curiosity. Her younger daughter had in a matter-of-fact way told her “when it’s over, you’re switched off then they bury you and you become old bones.”

I told her it didn’t have to be like that. “Just imagine your best and most exciting event with you the star within it…imagine that’s what it’s like.” She pondered for a moment and asked “but what if it isn’t like that?” I told her not to worry because we’d never know. We don’t know one way or the other, of course not, but we can make our lives here much more cheerful with a happy prospect rather than darkness and nothing.

Just imagine as John Lennon put it – “it’s easy if you try.”

Since that conversation with a game, old lady who’s still very much on the ball, I’ve been thinking about the power of our imagination and our ability to improve our mood just by dreaming. I told this to a very good friend who snorted “well that’s completely irrational.” I agreed with her because it is irrational but half of life is pretty irrational. Hard to argue that war is rational or falling in love is rational or playing cricket or baseball is rational.

But imagine in your dream of waking after death to find you’re on strike at the PNC Park, Pittsburgh  playing against the New York Yankees and effortlessly smashing the ball deep into the crowd or hooking Michell Starc for six at Lords or writing a joke so funny it reduces an audience at the Stand in Edinburgh to uncontrolled hysteria.

Imagine the best ever lunch al fresco at La Colombe d’Or in St Paul De Vence surrounded by friends and happy people listening to laughter and birdsong and sipping a glass of Condrieu.

Imagine the dream of spending time with witty, happy, beautiful people just soaking up the atmosphere of unalloyed bonhomie. And hearing:- 

“the Booker Prize for 2023 goes to “A Deathly Silence by… (your name goes here)” 

Julian Barnes in his book The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters writes about finding himself in a perfect heaven in his short story The Dream. He concludes:-

“Heaven’s a very good idea, it’s a perfect idea you could say, but not for us. Not given the way we are…. after a while, getting what you want all the time is very close to not getting what you want all the time.”

But the actual perfection of perfection is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how the prospect of perfection and extraordinary achievement could keep us going and make us good company. In a world full of nightmares, disappointments and ultimately death we can soften that blow, that finality by dreaming of a momentary afterlife and make the prospect of death less intimidating.

This isn’t the Christian view for sure. But as you lie there composing yourself just imagine there’s going to be a wonderful experience of your choosing about to happen.

It’s irrational. It’s eccentric. But it’s likely to make you feel a lot happier than thinking of earth and old bones or as Macbeth said:

    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

    And then is heard no more. It is a tale

    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

    Signifying nothing.

 

Think optimistically. Not this.

DOCTORS ARE REALLY IN THE TRANSPORT BUSINESS

I suppose I could change him for someone less philosophical - my doctor that is - who came out with the slightly gloomy thought as he examined me during a routine investigation that all life strategies ended in one place.

Death.

Put it into an economic environment and this would mean all empires and business empires end up collapsing. Which if you take a long view of history is about right. Persia. Egypt. Greece. Rome.  And, probably in the near future, will include Western Civilisation.

However he then added something slightly more cheering which was the journey of life was what mattered anyway. Enjoy it, discover new things and try to make a difference. He was there to make sure, as best he could, that one had rather more time than otherwise on the journey enjoying the experience, but, nonetheless, on a train without brakes that would one day hit the buffers.

Business leaders talking about long term strategy as opposed to short term tactics, about exit plans or about sustaining themselves through a series of generations are deluding themselves. If there’s only one certain exit plan it’s death.

Jeremy Clarkson talked about trying to lose weight and giving up drinking. He concluded:

“Waking up feeling fresh is like dying with a clear conscience and a healthy bank balance.  It means you’ve wasted your life”.

We’ll look back on the South Sea Bubble, the traumas of the 1970s miners’ strike and the current recession as blips in a high speed journey through vivid landscape.

So when you sit down to write your business plan in today’s chaotic times think of the tactics of short term success - of how you can make technological, marketing or simply product breakthroughs sooner rather than later…there may not be a later. Think about doing great stuff not about creating a great company. As Herb Kelleher founder of South West Airlines in the USA put it:

“We have a strategic plan; it’s called doing things.”

Ben and Jerry may not quite match Watson and Crick; Walt Disney may not have been as significant as Alexander Fleming and Woody Allen may be a pale shadow of Shakespeare but each and every creative journey is a roller coaster like the legendary Kingda Ka in New Jersey - the world's tallest roller coaster, the world's second fastest roller coaster and voted the scariest roller coaster.  There’s nothing strategic here just a near-death experience.

Which brings me back to my doctor.

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