Choose a Way of Life You Know You Will Enjoy (Letter to My Kids)
I wrote the following letter to my kids when they were both still in their teens...
Hey Guys,
The great poet Mary Oliver asks...
Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Ahh, our one wild and precious life...
It's true, isn't it? Life is wild — wild in the breathtaking, untamed, electric sense, and wild in the chaotic, careening, utterly unpredictable sense. Life is also precious — precious in the sacred, irreplaceable, once-in-a-universe sense, and precious in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sense.
So then, what are we to do? With our one beautiful, wonderful, fleeting, terrifying, and always interesting life? How do we take care of it — build it, shape it, steer it? How do we live it?
How?
These are the questions that follow us. Press on us. Never quite let us go.
The weight of these questions is made all the more crushing by the endless, conflicting opinions from everyone around us. Follow your passion. Don’t follow your passion. Start your own thing. You’d be insane to start your own thing. Take risks while you're young. Play it safe and build stability. Hustle harder. Slow down and enjoy life. Marry for love. Marry for practicality. Stay in your comfort zone. Get out of your comfort zone. Be ambitious. Be content.
Maybe we’re asking the wrong question — looking at it from the wrong angle entirely. When a question feels too big, too paralyzing, often the answer isn’t to charge forward, but to flip it on its head — to invert it. Instead of asking What should I do with my life?, maybe we should start by asking What do I know I don’t want?
The right path often reveals itself when we stop looking for the right answer and start eliminating the wrong ones.
Gonzo Journo
Throughout the 1960s, Hunter S. Thompson was a force of nature — an author, journalist, and icon known as much for his wild, drug-fueled escapades as for his razor-sharp mind and philosophical musings. By the 1970s, he had become a fixture at Rolling Stone, the beating heart of America’s youth movement. Yet, ironically, Thompson wasn’t writing about music. He was writing about himself — his madness, his adventures, his worldview — giving birth to a new genre of journalism: gonzo journalism.
Thompson’s eccentricities were legendary, but beneath them was a formidable intellect and profound wisdom. In 1958, his close friend Hume Logan wrote to him for guidance on how to navigate life. Thompson's response, a letter he titled Finding Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life, remains one of the clearest and most valuable pieces of wisdom I’ve ever come across. You can read it here.
What follows is a breakdown of what Thompson shared with Logan.
Finding Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life
Most people think they need a clear set of goals for the future, but they rarely stop to question that assumption.
The main issue is that, as we move through life and gather experiences, we change. And when we change, our perspective shifts. For those who’ve set rigid, predefined goals, this means constantly adjusting their lives to accommodate the demands of those goals — like chasing a moving target.
Another challenge with setting life goals so far in advance is uncertainty. Countless things can — and will — change, often in unpredictable ways. We have to travel a long road and invest years before we ever know if we’ll reach the targets we set for ourselves so long ago. Thompson’s advice to his friend was simple: look at the problem from an entirely different angle. Back to that inversion thing I mentioned above.
Rather than getting caught up in the pressure to have a clear vision of what we want to be or do when we grow up, we should "stop looking out there, where the goals are, and instead look inside, where you are. Rather than forcing yourself to conform to specific goals, have goals that conform to you — to who you are,” as Thompson so wisely puts it.
To do this, of course, you first need to understand what those abilities and desires are. What are you good at? How do you like to spend your time? What brings you joy? What kind of lifestyle do you want to lead? What kind of life do you want to create?
Inverting the problem in this way completely shifts the focus: Choose a path in life that aligns with your abilities (what are you good at?) and your desires (what do you want?), and let the answers guide the way. Position your abilities to serve your desires. Rather than bending your life to fit rigid goals, bend those goals to fit your unique abilities and aspirations.
Thompson closes his letter with some timeless advice: CHOOSE A WAY OF LIFE YOU KNOW YOU WILL ENJOY. Don’t chase after goals. Instead, focus on seeking, striving for, and even fighting for a way of life. Start by deciding how you want to live, and then find ways to use your abilities to make a living within that life.
Go get it,
Dad