Most of us spend a lot of time thinking about what we want. A better job. More money. A nicer house. More freedom. Less stress.
Very few of us spend much time thinking about what a successful life actually looks like.
That question came up during a conversation with Perry Atwal, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia and author of the upcoming book Wisdom for Life. After teaching more than 20,000 students around the world, Atwal has spent years looking for patterns in the people who thrive and the people who struggle.
One of the most interesting things he said was that most of us are aiming too low.
He asked a simple question: when you have no reason to feel anything, where is your energy level? On a scale from one to ten, are you ready to go back to bed, or are you bouncing off the walls?
Most people, he said, live around a five or six.
His argument is that we should be trying to live closer to a nine or ten.
That idea stuck with me.
A lot of us assume that energy comes from success. Atwal sees it the other way around. Energy creates success. The people who excel are often the people who bring more than what is asked of them. If an assignment calls for three things, they deliver five. They are curious. They stay engaged. They keep moving.
His prescription is surprisingly simple.
Take care of your health. Walk more. Spend time outside. Do work you genuinely enjoy.
“I walk for two or three hours every day,” he told me. “Virtually every great thought I’ve had in the last twenty years has been on that walk.”
That sounds almost too simple in a world obsessed with optimisation, AI, and productivity hacks. But perhaps that is the point.
The most powerful part of our conversation came when we started talking about work and purpose.
Many people feel trapped. They sit in offices wondering whether this is all there is. They worry they picked the wrong career. They worry they missed their chance.
Atwal argues that the pressure to find the perfect path is largely self-imposed.
Previous generations might have held two or three jobs during a lifetime. Today’s workers may have ten or twelve jobs and move across multiple industries. The first job does not have to be the perfect job. It only has to be the next step.
He also believes we underestimate the power of perspective.
One example from the interview has stayed with me.
He talked about cleaners.
Some people might look at a cleaning job and see failure. The happiest cleaners he knows see something completely different.
They see buildings that people want to enter because of the work they do. They see value created. They see contribution.
The job is the same. The story they tell themselves is different.
That idea feels especially important right now.
We live in a moment where every headline seems designed to convince us that the future is bleak. Economic uncertainty. Political conflict. AI replacing jobs. Constant disruption.
Atwal’s response is not to ignore reality. It is to choose where to focus your attention.
“The only constant really is change,” he said.
That may be the closest thing to a universal truth.
The people who flourish are rarely the people who predict the future correctly. They are the people who adapt. They keep learning. They develop skills that transfer from one job to another. They stay curious.
They also let go.
Let go of old habits. Let go of old assumptions. Let go of the idea that your life must follow a script.
Atwal even applies that philosophy to his closet. If he hasn’t worn something in two years, it’s gone.
The same rule probably applies to a lot more than clothes.
If there was one lesson I took from our conversation, it was this:
Success is not a destination. It is a way of moving through the world.
Take care of your health. Do work that matters to you. Surround yourself with positive people. Focus on your strengths. Help others when you can.
The details of your career will change.
The technology will change.
The world will change.
The question is whether you will keep going.
