Toward a Worthy Life

The model as it stands right now

When I was retiring from the Army, my department chair asked what I wanted to do for a party. I told him I didn’t really want a party. What I wanted to do was give one last lecture in which I would try to articulate my philosophy of what makes a good life. The faculty and students were kind enough to indulge me in one last lecture as a faculty member of the Army-Baylor program. As I sat down to begin to write this lecture, I shifted away from talking about a good life and chose to talk about a worthy life. And because none of us are perfect, and as long as we are alive, we have more to prove, I really wanted to phrase the project as aspirational, and thus I titled the talk “Toward a Worthy Life.” You can see the original talk here:

I gave that talk 10 years ago, almost to the day, in December 2014. My thinking has evolved in the 10 years since I gave that talk, but I still think of it as an aspirational project. Over the last 76 FITW letters I have been piecemealing my thoughts. The graphic above is my best expression of the model at this point. I’ll talk you briefly through it, and reference back to the letters where I wrote in more depth about each topic.

The model moves from left to right. The left third asks a fundamental question: are you fit for society? This is the question of Adam Smith’s commutative justice. To live a worthy life, you must first be fit for society. You must meet the bare necessities of living a just life. You must respect the three sacred P’s of person, property, and promises.

Person: you do not violate another person’s bodily integrity with violence.

Property: you do not try to take another person’s property.

Promises: you honor your obligations - legal, ethical, and moral.

As I title the letter on commutative justice, commutative justice is necessary but not sufficient for living a worthy life. These are the table stakes for playing at a worthy life. These are the bare minimum behaviors, which basically involve not doing bad things, that one must abide by before aspiring to a life that is worthy. If you violate any of these rules of justice, that’s it, game over. It doesn’t matter what else you do, you have failed.

I have not talked about redemption, it occurs to me as I write this, so I will have to do so at some point in the future. I guess I would have to say that it’s not really game over. Perhaps it is better to say, game on hold. One can seek forgiveness and redemption, and through that process journey back into being worthy for society. But to do that, one would first have to renounce one’s prior behaviors. At some point we must be able to earn the blessing, “Go and Sin No More” (John 8:1-11), which of course is aspirational, but these commutative justice rules are fairly clear and mostly easy to not violate.

If you willfully choose to break the rules of commutative justice, or you fail to renounce your prior actions and make restitution if you have ceased committing them, then you remain unfit for society. This is what prison is for in modern society, what expulsion (excommunication) and ostracism once was.

However, if you are able to abstain from violence, theft, and fraud, then you are happily on the first stepping stone toward a worthy life. You move to the middle of the model, where you dedicate yourself to leading a worthy life, and commit to make a continuous effort to be better. Commitment is the hinge. To live a worthy life is to constantly strive. Life changes, what you are capable of changes, and your obligations change. What you are called to do changes.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

So long as we are alive, our lives are projects of refinement. At each stage of our lives what we can and should contribute evolves. It is incumbent on each of us to evolve with those obligations.

The third section of the model is my equation for meaning:

Meaning = Competence x Contribution x Connection

Adam Smith’s concept of distributive justice, summarized as “a becoming use of one’s own” is the essence of this third part of the model. We have an obligation to make something of ourselves. I quote Mean Jesus in full the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) in FITW 3, “I coulda been a contender!” but Uncle Ben in Spiderman does a pretty good job: “With great power comes great responsibility.” (Just kidding, that was Uncle Ben channeling Voltaire.)

A becoming use of one’s own means we take all of the gifts and talents we have and pursue making a meaningful life: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48).

First, we seek to be competent. General competence is learning the lessons of junior high school home ec class, to take care of ourselves and not be a burden. Then we seek specific competence by finding where our fit is, and where we can make the greatest contribution.

Second is making that contribution. We will all die and be forgotten. Yet the things we do matters. We have obligations to others through time. Our actions echo through time, even if we are not remembered. To live a worthy life is to contribute to the well-being of others as well as taking care of ourselves.

Finally, humans are meant to live in community. To become the best we can be, we must seek connection. For a worthy life, we must seek connection with people who will help us become better versions of our selves.

OK - so that is the basic model that I have in my mind. Don’t be evil, work hard every day, and make yourself something beautiful. More to come, but I hope this is interesting. Let me know in the comments!