What We Really Climb For
Last year, I had a dream I have never fully been able to forget. In it, I was attending my own funeral. I saw myself walking beside the men carrying my coffin toward the place where I was about to be laid to rest.
The procession was quiet. It was a grey, windy autumn afternoon. There was no sound except the measured footsteps and the faint movement of the wind through the trees. It felt peaceful and strangely perfect to me. As we approached, I noticed the people who had gathered to say their final goodbye. I searched the small crowd instinctively, expecting to see familiar faces, fragments of the life I had lived.
About three people were standing at a distance, waiting for the ceremony to begin. Three people who had come to mark the end of my existence. In the dream, my consciousness hovered somewhere between presence and absence, aware enough to observe but unable to intervene. What I felt in that moment was not fear of death but something far more unsettling: the realization that perhaps I had lived a life that had not truly mattered to anyone beyond the surface.
Had I been so occupied with striving that I had forgotten to connect? Had I spent my time accumulating instead of being present? Had I built a life that was forgettable from within? It has stayed with me, returning occasionally in still moments. And over time, it became one of several subtle triggers that led me to reconsider what it means to live well, beyond achievement or admiration.
We are taught early to strive, to accomplish, to build, to secure. Few question this orientation because its motivations are reasonable: we want to feel safe, to provide stability for those we love, to avoid financial fragility as we grow older. Choosing careers, pursuing income and building comfort are not acts of vanity; they are expressions of a desire to live a good life. Yet somewhere along the path of responsible striving, we begin to accumulate more than we need and connect with others less than we intend. The pursuit of “more” becomes habitual. We assume that once enough has been secured, life will feel more complete. But accumulation rarely produces the sense of arrival we imagine. Famous people know this well; many are deeply miserable because their wealth cannot buy true relationships or real love.
Momentum can be useful, but it can also be disorienting. When life is organized entirely around forward movement, there is little opportunity to ask what all this motion is meant to serve. Over time, striving can become a self‑perpetuating activity, driven less by purpose than by habit. We move because we have always moved. We pursue because we have always pursued.
The Drift Away From One Another
The world is changing with a speed that now makes our old assumptions feel fragile. With the rise of AI, experts predict that millions of white‑collar workers may lose their jobs in the next 12–18 months. Many roles that once defined the modern middle class—marketers, coders, designers, lawyers, accountants—can now be performed by machines in seconds. The result may be an even sharper winner‑take‑all economy, where a small minority thrives while many struggle to find their footing. Personal bankruptcies will rise. Graduates will face an employment landscape with fewer entry points. For many, the traditional path into a stable life may no longer exist.
So what do we do? Perhaps the answer is not strategic but fundamentally human. Even in a world transformed by machines, there remains something AI cannot replace: our creativity, our emotional intelligence, our capacity for genuine connection. Soft skills—once considered secondary—will become the defining high skills of the future. It may sound ironic, but as technology accelerates beyond us, we are being called back toward one another: to reconnect, to communicate in person, to influence through presence, to charm, to feel, to lead face to face, to build relationships that endure. The question is: How many of us will still know how?
When people look back on their lives, they rarely measure their worth by what they owned. They remember who stood beside them in difficult times, who listened, who understood their struggles. They remember how someone made them feel—whether they felt valued, seen and recognized beyond their function. This raises a question that is both simple and difficult: What are we actually climbing for?
What We Are Really Climbing For
For many, the goal of striving has long been defined in material terms and a kind of elbows‑out competitiveness. Financial security, achievement and visible progress offer stability; however, they rarely create a life that is remembered. A person may accumulate endlessly and still remain emotionally avoidant and fragile.
What endures is genuine presence: the willingness to show up without measurable return, to offer undivided attention, to make others feel seen and valuable. If we want a life built around meaningful relationships, our choices must reflect that. Time for conversation, shared experiences and unhurried connection is required. Material success has its place, but only in context. It can enable generosity and widen our influence, yet it remains secondary to the qualities that sustain relationships: patience, empathy, presence, consistency.
The dream that once unsettled me has not returned, but its message will stay with me. To be remembered for how we made people feel is a lasting form of achievement. Striving will continue, but what it serves is ours to choose. And presence, once deferred, cannot be reclaimed.
