Beware the conveyor-belt life

How not to be remembered (a true-life story)

You hear a lot about ‘CV values v eulogy values’ and how it’s better to live in service of the latter than the former. Here’s a tragic example of how to bugger this right up:

Michael was at the college from 1963-66 reading law but without intending to be a lawyer. He played rugby for the college as well as athletics and swimming, not to mention the victorious rugger boat which got its oars in 1966. Then, via accountancy, he made his career in the City as a merchant banker. Following which he had a portfolio career as a non-executive director of a number of companies. He plays golf intermittently and until recently used to ski.

This was written in 2023.

The good news is that Michael isn’t dead. The bad news is that for most of the time since at least the 1960s he hasn’t been all that alive either.

You probably know Michael. Not personally, perhaps (though some people reading this do), but that’s obviously not the point. I’ve met an absolute sh!t-ton of Michaels. People who, with all the resources and opportunity of anyone ever, opt for the supposed safety of the conveyor-belt life.

Same sort of school.

Same sort of university.

Same sort of spousal arrangement.

Same sort of hour-heavy corporate-cog title-that-lets-you-sign-passport-photos big-city job.

Same sort of children in the same sort of schools.

Same sort of second home in the countryside.

Same sort of spending more and more time there before retirement, gifting the city pad to the children, joining the board of the golf club, and collecting hotel reward points until the same sort of death due to the same sort of decades of simmering stress and too much sitting, before finally the same sort of people read out the same sort of stuff at the same sort of funeral, praising everything the well-decorated deceased achieved in a suit, and being at a total fuck!ng loss about everything else.

Most of the people I went to university with are Michaels. They’ve been sat on the conveyor belt so long they’ve made ass-grooves Homer Simpson would be proud of.

Most of the clients (and borderline all of the advisers) I came across in face-to-face financial-planning advice are Michaels, making their way through the various stages of the life cycle of a financial idiot.

Michael may have lived – be living – the best life of anyone ever. But if he is, you’d never know if from how he talks about it.

‘So what?’ you may say.

‘What else was he supposed to write?’

‘This is just how things are.’

‘You can’t very well go writing: “Michael found himself mysteriously drawn towards…” or: “Michael comes alive when…” or, if you insist on keeping with the chirpy self-deprecatory tone of these things: “Michael’s lifelong attempts to prioritise becoming a wiser and more loving person have met with mixed success.” ‘

And yet, maybe he could have done?

One is forced to wonder, when compiling this little personally chosen highlights reel of how he wished his life – his web of relationships – to be seen, Michael questioned, despite having played the game by a hegemonic set of societal rules, if he couldn’t have played, not this game better, but a better game.

You got on the conveyor belt because you know where it goes, but so what when it’s just taking you in soul-crushing circles

Of course you want people to know you as a wise, loving, compassionate, healthy, interesting, soul, not ‘a billionaire’ or ‘the person who made partner at Goldman Sachs in record time’ or who ‘until recently used to ski’.

You have no intention of getting on, or maybe staying on, the conveyor belt. You’re more creative than that. You know that a life well lived prioritises the eulogy over the CV. You liked a LinkedIn post that said so!

Yet it strikes me that those bang on about ‘eulogy virtues’ are just as likely to be driven along the high road to heart disease by their craving for certain CV values as anyone else.

And ultimately, who’s dumber, the person who really believes that sacrificing everything for the Goldman Sachs record books makes them a better person, or the one that knows it doesn’t, but does the sacrificing anyway, because what else is there?

Rewrite Michael’s perverse little personal ad to say he disposed his life towards wisdom and love rather than money, and valued compassion and courage over the fittedness of his cog to the corporate machine, and maybe someone will point out that such vague waffle doesn’t mean anything. ‘Don’t tell me Michael was wise! Tell me how much money he made. Then maybe I’ll pay some attention to his example, ideally in extracted step-by-step protocol form.’

But such likely-irreversible idiocy isn’t the problem.

The problem is the people that see that chuffing along on the conveyor belt is a crappy way to live, but do it anyway, perhaps by persuading themselves it’s only temporary, as if you weren’t always here, always now, always wiring your worldview with your attention. Michael’s possibly spent his whole life waiting… and for what?

To me, it’s far more fascinating – and far more concerning – to see the ways in which people are addicted (which, remember, is not about compulsive desires, but about not seeing alternatives).

It’s especially interesting to ponder how money instigates and supercharges those addictions… how money narrows visions until all people see is stupid ways of living, and don’t see how to see more clearly… and, most crucially, therefore don’t see that solutions to their problems must start with seeing more clearly, not doing stupid things more efficiently.

If you direct your decisions towards prioritising progress along the conveyor belt over less measurable, but rather more meaningful, stuff such as physical, mental, and relational health, seeking opportunities to cultivate love, wisdom, compassion, and generally living in a way that makes your soul sing, far from living well, you’ll never really know you’re born, for you never really will be.