All right, welcome back.

Earlier this year I heard this idea that was new to me, maybe other people have heard this, but I heard it and it really took me back. I thought it was so smart.

It's the idea of the reverse obituary, which basically says, write down what you want your obituary to say and then figure out how to live up to it.

It's a sort of life philosophy. And everyone's will be different, of course.

But I suspect that most people, including myself,

if they were to do this exercise,

and ask what do you want your obituary to say?

You would want it to say something along the lines of, a caring friend. You were an asset to your community. You made a contribution to your industry,

you were wise, you were funny, you were smart.

Now stop and realize what is not in that obituary that you just wrote for yourself.

Virtually nobody in this exercise would think about their obituary mentioning

how many horsepower their car has or how many square feet their home is, or how many advanced degrees they had, how much they spent

on jewelry and clothes. You would not even think of including those things in there.

And now look I like nice things. I like nice homes and nice cars. I even have some fancy things.

But I'm always struck by the contrast here of what people want

versus what they actually aspire to in life. David Brooks was made a very similar statement when he talked about the difference between

resume virtues and eulogy virtues.

Resume virtues are what you achieved in the material world, how many promotions you got, things like that.

Eulogy virtues are things again, like how loved were you. Do people actually like you? Were you nice? Were you funny? Were you helpful?

And I think it's really important to make a distinction between those two things.

And a lot of this has to do with what we aspire to buy and do with our money.

Just after my son was born, he's now almost eight.

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