I was watching a documentary on Amazon recently. The documentary talked about Amazon had grown from a small online bookstore out of a garage to the mega retailer it is today that has disrupted lots of traditional businesses. Traditional bookstores or publishers for example now face a lot of competitive pressure from Amazon.
Part of that documentary had this interview of the Billionaire Founder Jeff Bezos.
The most thought-provoking part of this interview for me was the last bit. When Jeff Bezos said that businesses have a short life-span and that one day some other company will come along and disrupt Amazon. His job though was to delay that inevitable day.. and his hope was that it would come only after he was gone.
That gave me a whole new perspective of businesses or the companies we work for. He’s right. How many companies or brands that have been around for a 100 years still exist today in its original shape and form. Some have evolved, some have merged to form much bigger entities… and some have altogether just died no matter how big they were in their prime.
So all companies are dying… it’s just up to the CEO to delay that as much as we can.
Now that was the take-away I had but then something else occurred to me. More often than not companies or businesses outlive people. So if businesses are dying, then what about people? Are we all in a similar situation?
From the day we are born, a clock starts ticking. We all have a limited amount of time on this Earth. Some of us have more than others and some less. We will all inevitably die and leave this Earth for a better place.
So all the things we do to take care of life… eating healthy, exercising, not taking risks that could get ourselves hurt (like jumping out of a plane with a parachute)… all those things are just delaying the inevitable.
Now it makes sense for companies to delay the inevitable because companies have one objective and only one. That is to survive.
Does it make sense though for people?
What do we want out of life? To live the most years… or to live the fullest years? Because these two objectives are sometimes conflicting. Because if you want to live the most years then eat healthy and don’t take risks. But if you want to live the fullest years which means acquiring the most possible experiences then jump out of a plane with a parachute or go diving or… whatever that makes you happy in spite of the risk.
This weekend I find myself asking myself this question. Do I want to live the longest life… or do I want to live the fullest life?
A few years ago I would’ve said that I wanted to live the fullest life. But now that I have people to take care of in my life (Shorty, Fighter, my parents)…. I’m not so sure anymore.
How would you live your life?
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space