It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love? –David Brooks, ‘The Moral Bucket List’
I recently was reading a talk by David Brooks where he differentiates between ‘résumé’ virtues and the ‘eulogy’ virtues. As noted above, eulogy virtues are the strengths of one’s character that we often talk about at funerals, whereas résumé virtues are the skills that are needed for getting a job or advancing our career.
Although most of us would agree that the eulogy virtues are more important then the résumé ones, it’s often much easier to focus our time and attention on the job related skills. Building character can be a fuzzy concept—building a career tends to be more concrete. And although the résumé virtues may indeed help us achieve external success and accomplishments, they are no substitute for developing depth of character.
This is seen most clearly when we bump into someone who has been diligent in developing these inner qualities throughout their lives. They may not have the same external accolades as others, but there is something about the depth of their character that is undeniable—as seen in the love, humility, patience, and joy that radiates from them. These kind of qualities don’t just sprout up overnight—they take time to cultivate and develop.
Résumé virtues are by no means bad, and there is definitely a place for them in our work. The danger is that in developing them we neglect giving time and attention to these other virtues of the soul—virtues that take a lifetime to cultivate, but which give a depth to our life that no external accolade ever could.