lifestyle

Captain quality strikes again

How can you fit more into your day?

How can you build a bigger network?

How can you earn more money, live more years or have more experiences?

Simply follow the world.

But is there any point to filling up your days, crossing off more actions, so that you can own, earn and experience more “things, when all this leaves you feeling empty.  From my point of view, it is much more important to focus on quality rather than quantity of life.  I would much rather achieve less with my day, enabling me to really master these few things.  I would much prefer to live 50 satisfying years than 100 washed out years.  I would trade 100 popular experiences for 1 or 2 personally satisfying ones and a train-full of acquaintances for a few really close relationships.  But this is not the only way to see the world.

On the whole, our world seems obsessed with quantity.  The number of toys you own, the size of your house, the length of your contact list, the number of guests at your funeral.  This obsession fuels a never ending thirst for more.  If one is good, then surely 10 we will be better.  If I include enough people in my network then surely someone will be there when I need help.  However quantity has a habit of letting us down.

Quantity feels like security.  To have a hedge of possessions around us makes us feel safe from economic harm - little do we realise that these possessions cost more than they provide in value.  We feel emotionally rich when we list the number of  people on our email contact list, but we feel bankrupt when we realise that none of them actually understand us.  When we look at our masses of qualifications, trophies, references we know we should feel proud, but instead we feel let down, because we have somehow managed to miss out on achievements that were once really important to us.

Captain Quality to the rescue

Imagine a super hero whose mission is simply to reduce the quantity in our lives.  He bounds from house to house, removing excess and surplus and leaving very little.  When he arrives at your house, he tears off half of your achievements and takes them away.  He burns half of your possessions.  He cancels half of your relationships and leaves you feeling naked and alone.  You rattle around what is left of your life feeling scared and vulnerable.  “What will the world think of me?” 

 ”Will the world recognise me in this terrible state?” 

Then when things have settled down, you decide to take stock of what is left of your life.  Rather than being depressed by what you discover, you begin to find that while Captain Quality has taken away half of everything, what he has left is all of the best, most valuable bits.  He has left you with the relationships that matter most to you.  He has left you with the meetings, activities and work that are important to you.  He has left you with the possessions that make your life free rather than restricted.  In fact everything that you are now left with - just half of what once made your life - is just beautiful.  Everything has meaning to you, everything supports the life you seek and although there is very little quantity, it is more than made up for by quality.  In short he has left you with a real life.

Thanks Captain Quality, but how can we identify real quality for ourselves?

1. Quality is a measure of value.  Rather than just monetary value, quality measures utility, trustworthiness, durability, integrity, and a whole host of other non-financial characteristics
2. Quality often comes in the disguise of cost, but cost is never enough to determine quality
3. Quality relates as much to fulfilling claims as to the claims themselves.  A casual friendship that you could trust with unimportant matters is of a higher quality than a supposedly closer relationship that you can’t trust at all.
4. Quality and quantity are usually impossible to maintain at the same time.  One will always win out.
5. Quality is dependent on you for definition.  A Lotus sports car may be perceived as high quality by a sports car driver, but low quality by a luxury car driver.  Both may well be correct.
6. Quality is enduring but still subject to change.  Quality is usually a deeply fundamental characteristic but even these things can change given enough time and impetus.

 If quantity can be seen to fill us up, then quality can be described as providing lasting satisfaction.  The difference can be experienced in the sensation we feel after eating a bag of chips or eating a proper meal.  The chips may include more calories, but the meal may include better nutrients.  Which one makes you feel satisfied?

Quality is often harder to attain than quantity.  If you asked me to do 20 things in a morning, I would be able to do it by being super efficient and fast.  Quite simple really.  If you asked me to do 1 thing really well, then my task becomes more difficult.  I have to plan, and study, I may need outside assistance, I may need to try and re-try, and I may have to really sweat over the solution.  While the first situation just required me to do, do, do, the second really needed me to give myself to the task.  It is exactly the same when we consider any area of our lives.  If we focus on quality we are bound to end up working very hard to live up to our standards.  If we focus on quantity, we will accept anything, as long as it adds to our total.

The main requirement in pursuing quality is our discernment.  We have to understand ourselves and our situation before we can truly gauge quality.  Remembering that quality is a uniquely personal thing, we can never really look over someone Else’s shoulder to see their definition.  It is up to us to discern for ourselves what quality is and only then can we decide how to pursue it in our lives.

The pursuit of quality is a liberating, rewarding, enriching journey.  It is more than Total Quality Management or brand name fashions.  It is usually way below the surface and unseen by most of the world.  So it only really matters, in this sense, within your own life.  Quality misses out on the public approval that quantity receives, it seldom crowds out loneliness or hides personal insecurity.  Instead it leaves you naked and exposed to your own scrutiny.  Quality enhances your life but leaves you very few places to hide.  I think it is worth it.   What do you think?    

Thanks

Tom