A Mission Statement

Several years ago, as I was edging gingerly through the door of mid-life, I decided to come up with a mission statement. I’d been reflecting a bit about the first half of my life, and I was doing some hard thinking about the second part. You may find this odd, but it didn’t even take a day. I didn’t even have to go away to some island or retreat center to think about it. Quite frankly, it took me about two minutes.

I’ve had this mission statement for years now and I haven’t changed one word of the original two-minute composition. Here it is.

Don’t  screw up.

That’s it.  It’s not real long, it’s not real sophisticated, it’s not real polished, and it’s not real religious. Bit it is real. As I look over the rest of my life, I don’t want to screw up. Do you? Of course, you don’t. I don’t know any man who wants to screw up. Yet men screw up all the time. My goal for the second half of my life is not to screw up in a major way.

• I don’t want to screw up my marriage.
• I don’t want to screw up my relationship with my kids.
• I don’t want to screw up my integrity.

One day in the future there will be a funeral. My funeral. After the funeral, they’ll get in the black limos and head for the cemetery where a brief graveside service will be conducted. In another day or so, another worker will lay the marker over the grave. Usually a marker will have people’s names and the dates of their birth and death. It’s also common to have a few final words inscribed on the marker. 

Have you ever given any thought to what you’d like to have inscribed on your grave marker?  I have. It would be fine with me if my grave marker read like this:

Steven James Farrar
Born 1949
Died ____
He Didn’t Screw Up

I wouldn’t mind it at all if someone chiseled those words in granite underneath my name. Do you know why? Because it would mean I finished strong. It’s like a coin with a head and a tail. On one side is “Finish Strong.” On the flip side is “Don’t Screw Up.”

—Steve Farrar

Steve Farrar is the author of ten books, including the
best-sellers Point Man and Finishing Strong.
Learn more at SteveFarrar.com