Zoe or Just Bios?
Written by: Vijay Krishnan
In chapter 2 of StartUp Santa, the real Mystery of Monopoly is revealed by exploring how a game that is supposedly focused on greed actually has so much more to teach.
The greek philosophers (and their language) used two different words for what we translate as “life”. One word was bios. It refers to physicality, flesh and bones, where we get the idea of biological life. Bios is your living, breathing, physical self. The other word was zoe. This refers to vitality (not just physicality). It’s what the french saying “joie de vivre” means, the love of life. It’s what we mean when we say or think to ourselves: “I feel so alive”, after an exhilarating bike ride or a breath-taking view.
But if we’re honest, zoe seems hard to find, or hard to hang on to, doesn’t it. And over time, it can get conflated with or mistaken for a red-bullish extreme sports experience, or the hit you get from a social media post hitting the growth algorithm. Is that what it means to feel alive? If it is, that could be dangerous. Chasing the feeling or the high can lead to some dark places, bad choices or, most commonly, an emptiness on the inside.
The most famous and world-changing teacher ever to walk the planet offered His followers “Life to the Full” - which can also be translated “Eternal zoe”. The experience of vitality, fullness, delight, flowing from the inside out, in an ever-increasing, never-diminishing way. Sign me up!
But what does that look like in everyday life?
At Full Spectrum, our conviction is that Life to the Full must have a holistic expression. It cannot simply mean fullness, vitality, or dynamism in ONE area of life (e.g. entrepreneurial success) at the expense or neglect of other areas of life (relationships, health, etc).
For Life to the Full to be real, dynamic, fulfilling and lasting, it must be true in 3 areas of life: Our life’s work, our relationships and our impact on the world around us.
Our Work
We live in a culture that worships retirement (at least the “work to live” crowd does). Freedom 55 or the Lottery both promise a life of leisure and freedom from work. Author Ben Patterson points out the subtle absurdity in this:
“how odd that we should spend all of our lives doing something so we don’t have to do it anymore.”
Then there’s the “live to work” among us, pouring all of ourselves into our companies, our ventures, our next idea or line extension. Either way, we can work without zoe. Life to the Full means our work is both fulfilling and (in some measure) successful; that we find what we were made to do and are able to do it.
Our Relationships
Love is what makes the world go ‘round. Sounds cliche but it’s so so true. Zillionaire artists didn’t get rich writing songs about work (“Taking care of business” notwithstanding), but about love. People on their deathbed don’t surround themselves with their degrees and trophies and IPO documentation. They surround themselves with loved ones. And their greatest regrets have nothing to do with work, unless it’s about the fact that they worked too much. Life to the Full means that we have deep and meaningful relationships with our family, a small circle of friends we trust and can be vulnerable with, and a God whose love we know personally and with whom we connect with on a daily basis. It means we didn’t sacrifice (or ignore the importance of) our marriage, quality and quantity of time with our kids, or cultivating a relationship with God.
Our Impact in the world
Life to the full also means that we looked after what we were entrusted with and used it to make a positive impact on the world around us. What have you been entrusted with? Your body. Your time. Your money. These are the “resources” we have been given. To say they are mine is an incomplete thought. They are mine to use to make the world better. How we look after and strengthen the body, which includes how we deny its impulses at times, will determine how we impact the people and the world around us. How we invest our time, since it is the one thing we cannot grow or get more of, is something you alone are responsible for. How you use money to help grow people (and not vice versa) is going to have a direct impact on your experience of vitality and fulfillment.
Which of the three areas (Work, Relationships, Impact) might need your attention or improvement? Comment down below. We'd love to hear from you.
