Many biblical verses are like inkblot tests, revealing more about us than about the text in question.
Harold S. KushnerRead
In all my years of counselling those near death, I've yet to hear anyone say they wish they had spent more time at the office
Interpretation
People tend to regret not spending more time with loved ones than working.
This quote highlights a common reflection among individuals approaching the end of their lives: they often wish they had prioritized their personal relationships and experiences over work commitments. Harold S. Kushner emphasizes the importance of living a life filled with meaningful connections, suggesting that time spent with family and friends is ultimately more fulfilling than time spent in the pursuit of professional success.
In practice
In a speech about work-life balance during a company retreat.
Many biblical verses are like inkblot tests, revealing more about us than about the text in question.
I am quite confident that the most important part of a human being is not his physical body but his nonphysical essence, which some people call soul and others, personality... The nonphysical part cannot die and cannot decay because it's not physical.
That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.
Pain is a part of being alive, and we need to learn that. Pain does not last forever, nor is it necessarily unbeatable, and we need to be taught that.
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter.
We cannot live without the knowledge that someone cares about us.
I gave myself the small task of writing honestly about the kind of life I knew. I believe there is some value in carrying out that task, however limited.
I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been - if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again.
The bus roared on. I was going home in October. Everybody goes home in October.
Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import
We cannot build our lives around what might happen tomorrow.
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