I returned from my 45th-year b-school reunion confirming impressions I had after my 50th-year high school reunion (see A Lesson 50 Years in the Making: Kindness Endures).
In both cases, there was a wide spectrum of fortune and misfortune. As the good book says, “rain has fallen on the just and on the unjust”. And yet, regardless of outward “success,” the passage of time revealed who people were all along. Some were happy and at peace, and some weren’t – and it didn’t seem to be too closely correlated with outward success. In my b-school class were Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater), Tom Stemberg (founder of Staples) and many whose careers garnered less attention but whose lasting legacies are as bright as the best of my high school classmates. Indeed, kindness endures.