When the Metrics Stop Mattering

At 71 years of age, I increasingly realize that the quantity of something means far less than the quality of it. I also realize that’s how it should have always been.

What I read: “Why So Many People Are Unhappy in Retirement” by Arthur C. Brooks. Published May 7, 2020.

Note: I subscribe to The Atlantic. If you do not, there might be a paywall. I believe I summarize the crux of the article here enough that my related commentary makes sense. I recommend subscribing to The Atlantic because they deliver excellent journalism, reporting, and commentary.

In past posts I have written about retirement. In September 2022, I left my 24-year corporate technology job and 35-year technology career to phase into what is often referred to as retirement.

In “Powerful Perspectives on Retirement,” I referenced six principles of retirement a friend articulated during a conversation we had just after he retired from his corporate career. All six principles are excellent, and I suggest you check them out.

In “So, About Retirement,” I wrote about Catherine Rickwood’s excellent TED Talk, “Retirement is redundant.” I explained why I rarely use the word retirement.

For the record, I’m no longer using the word retirement in my daily vernacular when referring to what I see more as a sabbatical than retirement. I needed a break from the day-to-day of corporate life. But by no means do I consider myself retired. There are so many things I want to do and retirement seems like an inaccurate word for my life going forward.

I’m now 3+ years into my post-corporate life (retirement) and I’m enjoying it immensely. When I read Arthur C. Brooks’s article, it helped me better articulate something that’s been banging around in my head a lot since leaving my last full-time job. Brooks concludes his article with this (I recommend reading the entire article).

Unless you keel over in the prime of life, your victories will fade, your skills will decline, and life’s problems will intrude. If you try to hang on to glory, or lash out when it fades, it will squander your victories and mark an unhappy end to your journey. If you’re still in the middle of your hero’s journey, it would behoove you to make tangible plans now to show true strength and character in the final phase. Plan to spend the last part of your life serving others, loving your family and friends, and being a good example to those still in the first three stages of their own hero’s journey. Happiness in retirement depends on your choice of narrative.

One of the ways I frame this phase of my life is in terms of letting go of metrics, the ways we often measure success in our lives.

Rather than always clamoring for more money, now I ask myself, “Do I have enough?” or “Can I make enough?” and the lofty financial goals I once strived for fall away. The metric of money is only important now insofar as knowing I have enough for the basic necessities of life along with a few nice extras now and then.

A few months ago, I discovered an old goal planning document in my paper archives. I wrote those goals in 2001. Looking back, I realize now how unrealistic and somewhat shallow my financial goals were. Despite me often having exclaimed I don’t care much about money, clearly I did enough back then to set a rather high bar for my future net worth.

For the record, I have not used any goal planning methodology for many years as I explain in “Stop Dangling Carrots.”

For decades I would exercise religiously. That’s a good thing, but too often my motivations were external physicality versus health and fitness. I pumped iron more for the look than the strength. I did cardio more for the leaning effect than the cardiovascular fitness. I chased the metric of physical beauty.

These days I walk a lot, do a few calisthenics, and practice a simple yoga series that keeps me relatively limber. No gym. I worry less about looks, although if I get honest, I still adjust my diet every time I see my gut jut out from above my beltline. But overall, I care far less about what I look like and far more about my health and how I feel.

In that same 2001 goal planning document was a ridiculously arbitrary goal to read 25 books that year. Did I? I have no idea. I read a lot. Some times more than others. But I always have a book at hand and pick it up and put it down as feels right at the time. The metric of quantity has given way to quality. Do I enjoy the books I’m reading? Do the books I’m reading improve me as a person? How many books I read is irrelevant.

You get the idea. Nowadays I don’t much care about how much I do or have of something (metrics). Instead, I care about the quality of what I have or do. To the best of my ability, I try to constantly push back on the societal messaging that we should do more, be more, and have more. The metrics don’t matter.

But, and this is the important part. If I get honest, that’s how I should have functioned all along. When I reflect back on my life, I realize that at no time did me striving for quantity of anything matter as much as the quality of it. We can’t rewind our lives. I’m not entirely sure I’d want to if I could. But I hope that perhaps someone reading this who is much younger than me will take some inspiration from it to focus less on the metrics of achievement and status and more on the overall quality of one’s life. That seems like it can and should apply to all of us.

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