Life Achievements

So today I was thinking about a video that I’m making for the father-in-law of a friend of mine. He’s being honored with a lifetime achievement award, which got me thinking: what exactly quantifies a person’s achievements in life? What would make me happy to walk away from life having accomplished?

What I came up with was kind of a multi-part response. I think first off, everything you’ve done in life can be divided into four classifications:

1. Class 1: Unimportant - Something that you’ve done that is inconsequential to the betterment of the human race. An achievement that doesn’t affect others.
2. Class 2: Noteworthy - An action, role, or status that you’ve invested yourself towards, though has no lasting effect on the other people involved. i.e.: Your position could be filled by a replacement with little difficulty.
3. Class 3: Important - Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and roles that define you as a person. Your position could not easily be filled by a replacement and you have permanently left your mark on the role.
4. Class 4: Critical - Something that others dependent on. Your position could not be replaced, the well-being of others rests solely in your hands. Your absence would be deeply unsettling for others.

Class 1 items on my scale are the small things: you helped someone out in math class, you made honor roll, you learned to ride a bike. Stuff that nobody else really cares about but means a lot to you. It might be important to you, but it doesn’t define you in any larger sense. These achievements are sought by the vain and the petty.

Class 2 achievements are more substantial. Perhaps you had a job where you pushed papers. Surely your role helped to improve the quality of life for others—you’ve helped to better the company as a whole. You haven’t really done anything ground-breaking in a class 2 achievement, though.

I would imagine that a lot of people consider class 2 achievements to be “a big deal,” and they would be partially right: to go through life without experiencing the “small stuff” effectively results in one missing a lot of what life has to offer. Perhaps it’s something as simple as getting a promotion, placing well in a sports event, or helping a friend through some hard times. You’re doing something at least a little worthwhile and that’s something to be proud of.

On the flip side, these aren’t important enough to land you in any history books. In fact, chances are, they aren’t even likely to land you in any written records whatsoever. Think of these things as the tiny, metaphorical finish-line tapes that you run through. They don’t mean much in the end, but they’re not much more than symbolism.

Class 3 achievements are rare—the average person only achieves a handful of these throughout their life, if any. These are the big ones: working your way to the top of your company or organization, becoming a leader in your community or region, making a significant contribution to a worthy cause. These are the things that define a person’s character in the biggest ways. Your name might not be a household word, but you won’t be forgotten easily.

The last class of achievements is class 4. A class 4 achievement might just be the easiest (or most difficult) to attain: start a family. What’s more sacred than your genealogy? To start a lineage, to have dependents and raise them right is fundamental to our nature as humans. On the flip-side, though, if you raise your children badly, then it isn’t much of an achievement, is it? Anybody can pop out a kid, but it takes a dedicated and sensible person to teach them how to function in today’s world.

In the interest of being brief, I’ll close up with this: as it stands, I feel like I’ve got plenty of class 1 and 2 achievements, and who doesn’t? Anybody that’s done something with their life (up to the age of 20) should have a few under their belt. I don’t know if I’ve done anything 3 or 4-worthy. A lot of that is stuff that comes later in life, I would think. Obviously having a child is something that anyone that’s gone through puberty can do, but doing it responsibly is another story. I’ll just have to wait and see how the rest of my life turns out to know for sure, I suppose.