Peter Buffett - Life Is What You Make It: Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment

This book is dedicated to
my mother and father

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
J OSEPH C AMPBELL

This is a book about gifts received and gifts given back to the world, about expectations and obligations, about family and community, and how they shape us. Its about living in a society that lulls us with unprecedented comforts, but also tweaks us with anxietiesboth economic and otherwiseand too often leaves us empty and bewildered in our search for purpose.

In short, this is a book about valuesabout the convictions and intuitions that define whats worth doing during our brief stay on Earth, about the actions and attitudes that will add up to a well-lived life. Economic prosperity may come and go; thats just how it is. But values are the steady currency that earn us the all-important rewards of self-respect and peace of mind.

This is also a book about identityabout the callings and talents and decisions and quirks that make each of us uniquely who we are.

Values and identity. In my view, these things can be meaningfully addressed only as two sides of the same coin. Our values guide our choices; our choices define who we are. Life is what we make it. The concept is simple, but the process by which we make our own lives can be complex and baffling. Expectations and external pressures blur the outline of our truest selves. Economic reality, for good or ill, plays a big role in the dynamic, as does pure dumb luck.

Ultimately, though, we create the lives we live. This is our greatest burden and greatest opportunity. It is also the most basic, bedrock premise of everything I have to say in these pages.

So then, what sort of people will we choose to be? In the myriad choices that we face each day, will we choose the path of least resistanceor the path of potentially greatest satisfaction? In our dealings with others, will we meekly shy away from intimacy and honesty and toleranceor will we open ourselves to robust and candid relationships? In our work lives, will we settle for making a livingno sure thing these days!or aim at the higher goal of earning a life? How will we become worthy of the various gifts we have received? How will we learn the redemptive art of giving back?

Answers to these questions can come only from inside each of us. The goal of this book is simply to raise them, to offer a framework for thought and, I hope, discussion.

But who am I to be writing such a book? The honest answer is no one in particular. Im not a trained philosopher or sociologist, and Im not setting up shop as one more self-help guru. My only credential, in fact, is my own lifea life that has forced me to think long and hard about these matters.

By the luck of the drawwhat my father calls winning the Ovarian LotteryI was born into a caring and supportive family, a family whose first and most important gift to me was emotional security. Over time, as a bonus that came as a gradual and wonderful surprise, my family also got to be wealthy and distinguished. My dad, Warren Buffett, by dint of hard work, solid ethics, and steady wisdom, has become one of the richest and most respected men in the world. I say this with plenty of filial pridebut also with the humble acknowledgment that those are his accomplishments, not mine. No matter who your parents are, youve still got your own life to figure out.

Further, as is widely known, my father has some pretty strong opinions on the subject of inherited wealth. Basically, he believes that the silver spoon in the mouth too often becomes the silver dagger in the backan ill-considered gift that saps ambition and drains motivation, that deprives a young person of the great adventure of finding his or her own way. My father had the enormous satisfaction of discovering his own passion and making his own mark; why should his kids be denied that challenge and that pleasure? So, no big trust funds for the Buffett clan! My siblings and I, upon turning nineteen, were each given a very modest amount of money, with the clear understanding that we should expect no more.

Certainly there would be no juicy end-of-life bequests. Back in 2006, my father, in an act of philanthropy historic in its scale, gave away the bulk of his fortune$37 billionto the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At the same time, he established billion-dollar charitable endowments to be administered by each of his three children.

So heres an irony for you. Today, at the age of fifty, I find myself with the enormous opportunity and responsibility of stewardship over a billion dollars meant to be given away, while in my own mind I remain very much a working stiffa composer and musician who, like most of my colleagues, is only as good as his last composition, neither more nor less successful than my next job lets me be.

But thats okay; Im doing something I love, something Ive chosen for myself, and I wouldnt have it any other way. I guess Ive inherited more than just my fathers genes; I seem to have absorbed much of his philosophy as well.

Dont get me wrong: I am very well aware that I was born into a privileged life. The economic head start I received from my father may have been a relatively modest one, but still, it was more than most people haveand it was entirely unearned. Similarly, through no merit of my own, I have enjoyed the various, often intangible benefits of a famous last name. Far from denying these advantages, I have spent my life wrestling with their meaning and implications and consequences. To stand an old clich on its head, Ive had to learn to make the best of a good situation.

There is a famous quotation from the Book of Luke that was taken very seriously in our family: From those to whom much has been given, much is expected. And it was made very clear that the most important gifts of all had nothing to do with money. There were the gifts of parental love and close community and warm friendship, of inspiring teachers and mentors who took delight in our development. There were the mysterious gifts of talent and competence, capacity for empathy and hard work. These gifts were meant to be respected and repaid.

But how? How do we repay the gifts that came to us unbidden and more or less at random? And not just repay them, but amplify them, so that they grow beyond our own small circle to make a difference in the world? How do we balance ambition and service, personal goals and the common good? How do we avoid the pressures that can trap us into lives that are not really our own? How can we work toward a version of success that we define for ourselvesa success based on values and substance, rather than mere dollars and the approval of others, and that cannot be tarnished or taken away by shifting fashions or a bad economy?

It is my belief, based both on intuition and observation, that there are many, many people wrestling with these questions. Young men and women hankering to set off on their own course, even when their aspirations entail risk and sacrifice and bold divergence from the usual paths. Parents who want to instill solid values in their kids, so that they grow up with a sense of gratitude and adventure, rather than the smug passivity that comes from feeling entitled.

These people, and many othersteachers, nurses, business leaders, artistsrecognize that they are members of a society unprecedented in its affluence but appalling in its inequality. They are people of consciencepeople who respect the gifts that theyve been given and want to use those gifts to make not just a livelihood, but a difference. If this book is of some small help and comfort to the many individuals who are questing to live their own true lives, and to give back in the process, then I will have accomplished what I hoped to do.