ADVISE TO THOSE STILL “AT IT”-#2
July 15th, 2026
I’ve always been an avid reader. I can easily have 3-4 books on the go at any given time and I’m here to confess that I don’t end up finishing many of them. I’ll get through 2/3s of most of my reads but then, like a fly to light, I’ll be drawn to a new title and my attention and interest will shift. My weighting is certainly on faith based topics and I’m not a big novel guy. Non-fiction and auto biographies are right up there too.
One author, in particular who has had an impact on me is Arthur Brooks. In his book From Strength to Strength, he made a distinction that stopped me cold when I first encountered it—- the difference between deal friends and real friends. Deal friends, he suggests, are the relationships that thrive as long as something is in motion. A project, a contract, a mutual benefit. They are often genuine in the moment. but when the deal goes away, so do they. Real friends, in contrast, are the ones who are there regardless. Likely longer term and the ones who don’t require a lot of effort to maintain because they don’t want anything from you.
I watched the “Deal Friend” scenario play out in real time. When my working chapter ended, the cadence of certain relationships changed almost immediately. Phone calls that had been weekly became monthly, then occasional, then silent. It wasn’t malicious — it was simply the nature of what those connections had been built on. What surprised me wasn’t that it happened. It was how much it happened, and how quickly. Brooks would say that coming to this realization earlier in a career is a gift, not a loss. I think he’s right. The resounding quiet that was associated with this is something that took some real getting used to. I’ll write more about this in subsequent posts.
Brooks also draws a useful contrast between two sets of pursuits. The first — fame, fortune, power, and recognition — are what most of us spend our working years chasing, often without admitting or knowing it. They are not without value, but they have a shelf life. They exhaust themselves, even in the midst of their pursuit, they will tend to run out of momentum and even meaning. Again, not something that is inherently apparent, just an increasing sense that the chase was losing its appeal. Contrast this with an alternative or second set of goals — faith, family, friends, service to others— and you may have something that is more lasting—- in large part because they are immune to what you do or what you make. They don’t care about a title. They don’t disappear when the deal does. Brooks suggests that the first is a natural allure that seems innocent enough in its pursuit but left unchecked can completely choke off the second set which is rich in value and much more lasting towards true fulfillment.
Looking back honestly, I would admit that invested faith and service had slipped toward the margins in my working years. Not absent — but not intentional either. They were periodic fill-ins, working the margins of my life and done out of duty or even guilt to compliment a carefully crafted self image.
For me, at the time, service meant volunteering at a food bank. It was something I genuinely believed in — I’d even rally staff and colleagues to participate. But in reality it was once, maybe twice a year, usually around Christmas when everyone feels a little more charitable. Now I go weekly. And the difference is not small. Weekly immersion puts you inside a community. You begin to recognize faces, learn stories, and see with new eyes the gaps that exist between the bounty most of us take for granted and the stark shortfalls of daily existence for others. I think that kind of regular exposure would have introduced a layering of perspective that is so easily lost when you’re chasing the rabbit in front of you — and so necessary for understanding what you’re actually chasing it for.
The other practice that has proven quietly transformative is working with a spiritual director. Spiritual directors are not therapists or counselors. Their focus is something far more specific — and for most of us, far more unfamiliar. They are trained to ask one fundamental question: where is God active in your life right now? It sounds simple. It isn’t. Especially when you’re consumed with yourself and your goals. Over months of monthly sessions, my questions slowly shifted. The “why’s” and “what now’s” and “where are you God” gradually gave way to something more honest and uncomfortable—- recognizing where God actually was. How could I not see the blessings that surrounded me?. The good fortune through no will of plan of my own. It invites gratitude into the equation and forces to you to grapple with who God actually is, rather than who you imagine Him to be—-news flash…. they aren’t the same. And to be clear, sharing all this at this point in no way suggests that I have figured it out but it did move the chess pieces around the board more deliberately and create an acceptance that this will be a life long endeavour.
Which brings me back to the proverbial “what if”? Could starting these practices earlier have made a difference? I have to think in retrospect they would have. Not because they would have made the transition from work to post-work painless. But because they would have built something underneath me before the ground shifted. They are, it turns out, the more durable investment. And with the benefit of hindsight I’d suggest perhaps the most honest thing I can offer anyone in the midst of their working careers is to not wait to find out—- start into this now.