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    “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

    –

Socrates

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Well. We are constantly cramming stuff into our lives … personal and business.

And doing lots of stuffsometimes we need to assess our cramming or at least report upon it.

I thought about this as I helped a young man fine tune his resume.

Now.

This isn’t about how to list all the stuff you do and have done <and assessing it>.

This isn’t about trying to get more done in less time. This isn’t even about ways to do more stuff.  Because, suffice it to say, most of us cram a lot of stuff into our daily lives without even thinking about it.

This isn’t even about ‘are we doing anything truly meaningful with our lives” because I believe “meaningful” has been bastardized to such a point where we have lost sight of reality. What do I mean? I would argue that in the moment most of us would judge our actions as “meaningful” in some degree.

I am either fulfilling a responsibility <my job description for example> or doing something I have chosen to do. These choices are usually not flippant they are a reflection of judging what is most meaningful to needs & wants in the moment.

Where it gets bastardized is in reflection.

Most of our stuff is unglamorous and much of it is the day in and day out unsexy, slow, going hard won steps we take in moving our life and career forward. Most of it represents overwhelming piles of a bunch of stuff crammed on top of whatever your greater mission is <which is most likely making your Life & career better> and therefore in the rear view mirror looks like a boring two lane highway stretching back as far as the eye can see <or a big pile of meaningless stinky stuff>.

But. Here is the truth. Most of us cram a lot of stuff into our lives. And a lot of good useful meaningful stuff. Yes. My stuff will be different than your stuff, but realistically it is pretty stupid to compare my stuff to your stuff because “stuff” can come in a variety of sizes, shapes, colors and quantities.

And that is where this young man’s resume helped me think about this.

“Look at what I crammed into my 6 year professional Life.”

That’s what a resume reflects. Mine is “look at what I crammed into my 25+ year professional Life.” My life resume would be “look at what I crammed into my 50something Life.”

Unfortunately other people will ‘judge’ your stuff based on ‘meaningful’ but I imagine, whether we believe it is our responsibility or not, it is up to you to dignity of the meansexplain why the stuff mattered. Because it did.

In fact … it ALL did.

It may not look that meaningful on paper or on some screen and you may feel your shoulders sag a little thinking “jesus, is this all I did in my Life/career. But you should take a close look. Not at the stuff on the paper but at what that stuff represented in the context of the moment and the choices made, and not made, and what resulted from that ‘stuff choice’ as you crammed another thing in.

Sure. In a resume or even in discussion on “what have you done in your Life” you have to take a moment and understand that someone is going to judge the stuff you crammed into your Life.

That’s just part of Life <and business>

I think what I am suggesting, though, is that instead of focusing on “what keywords I need to put in my resume’ or ‘what purpose does my Life serve” when trying to explain yourself that you frame your thinking around “well, I have to assume I am not an oblivious idiot and that when I was doing stuff, in general, I assume I was choosing to do what I believed was most meaningful in that time & place.”

And explain the meaningful.

I could very easily argue that someone who has maintained one job in their entire Life has crammed the same amount <quantity> of stuff into their Life, and career, as someone who has had 12 jobs in 12 different cities.

I could also very easily argue that in both of those scenarios both of those someones have done a lot of meaningful stuff.

I could also very easily argue that both someones have a lot to offer.

They would just have different stuff crammed in and most likely offer some different things because of the stuff they crammed in. some stuff leads to focused expertise and some stuff leads to broad generalist perspective and some stuff affects your life/work balance and some stuff affects your overall attitudes and behaviors.

But all the stuff we cram into our Life & career matters.

Oh. big life dickinsonBut that last point said.

I could also very easily argue that cramming stuff into Life and career isn’t about judging ‘good choice versus bad choices’ <or even regrets> because, well, I will end where I began — we cram a lot of stuff into Life. No one’s life, no matter how busy or non busy it is, is barren. And it is silly to suggest that. Sure. We may lose sight of some important things on occasion but that does not constitute ‘barren.’

In fact, it cannot be barren because, well, we cram our Life & career with a lot of stuff <most of it meaningful when done>.

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Written by Bruce