Thursday, March 1, 2012

Grim News

                So I wanted to share a little insight as to why I am re-inventing myself.  It starts off with some very grim news for everyone.  You are going to die.  This shouldn’t really surprise anyone however if you really accepted that statement you might be behaving slightly different than those around you.  I don’t see it as grim and if you stick with me long enough I’ll explain why.

                I found a great quote last year and I’m not sure when it was said but that really isn’t important.  The meaning of the quote is totally relevant.  It is one of my favorite quotes and I find myself amazed that he worded his response so well.  The Dalai Lama was asked a question and his response is the quote I am referring to.  The question was “What surprised him most about humanity?”  His amazing response was this:
                “Man.  Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.  Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.  And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
                There is a lot there if you take a second to appreciate what he said.  How many of us work fifty plus hours a week?  Some work sixty or worse even more?  How many times have you said I don’t have time to ____________?  How many times have you said you’ll do something next week when you have more time?  Do you think that you enjoy the present?  Do you feel that you are living life to its maximum potential?  When was the last time you took a vacation?  Do you ever stop and realize that another year just flew by and it seems like time is going faster and faster?  I’ll give you a big hint, time isn’t going faster!  I’d venture to say that most of the people I meet do not get the Dalai Lama’s response and might not even get this paragraph.  Those are the folks who go through life on cruise control.  They don’t accomplish much in their lifetime and are surprised by their ending (in whatever form it comes).  I DO NOT want to be that person.
                However I didn’t really need The Dalai Lama’s quote to change my life or my behavior.  I had a much more personal experience about twelve years ago.  Every year I go for my annual physical, with my doctor, just to make sure my body is doing ok.  Twelve years ago I had some blood work come back that didn’t paint a pretty picture.  It looked as though my liver was failing and when I asked the doctor what the worst case scenarios would be he replied that I might just have weeks to live.  I was twenty eight when this happened.  I had two wonderful children and now had to look at my short life and write the ending.  It wasn’t complete.  I had so much that I wanted to do.  I, just like most, thought I would have more time.  I’d get to it next week, etc.  It was a very dark moment in my life as I came face to face with my own mortality.  I realized I had been on cruise control for most of my adult life.  As you can already deduce, I didn’t die but that event changed me forever.
                I now realized that I was going to do die and while it wasn’t just weeks away it was inevitable.  This time though I was going to be ready or should I say as ready as you can be.   When you have weeks to live, you realize just how NOT important work is.  Sure, it is a necessity to get money but for most of us it takes us a way from our families and the things we love to do for long stretches of time.  The really smart and lucky ones love our work so it’s more tolerable.  I basically, at a fundamental level, re-invented myself way back then.  I changed my diet.  I started exercising.  I changed my life.  Those who know me well enough will draw the lines that I got divorced not to long after that event.  Because of that experience I cherished life in a totally different way than those around me.  I work hard but I play hard.  I strive to be the best at whatever I am doing.  I tried to embody living consciously.  I live in the moment and when I’m focused on something it has my complete attention.  When I’m not working I am doing what I want to be doing and it usually is not what I’d call wasted time.  I never have a moment where I thought what happened to that month?  What happened to that year?  I am living in the present and experiencing life!
It wasn’t too long after the bad blood work event that I found the story 1,000 marbles written by Jeffrey Davis.  It resonated with me because of my experience.  If you aren’t familiar with it I highly recommend reading it, at least once (it is very short).  It’s a parable about appreciating life’s finite nature.  You can read it here:  http://www.landofmarbles.com/marbles-1000marbles.html or buy his book.  You can count the marbles you have left as they go by.  It’s a great way of keeping you focused on what is really important and it makes you consciously aware of just how little time you have left.
Oddly, and this sounds bad, but I wish all those who read this could experience the event that I had with that bad blood work.  I don’t want anyone to actually die but the experience alone would touch and change your life just as it did to me.   Just think about it for a second.  What if you had two weeks to live?  Would you do anything different?  Would you have any regrets?  If the answer to either of those questions is yes then you may have been cruising through life like I did in my twenties.  Stop!  Don’t do that.  Join me in my re-invention if you have to.  Do whatever it takes to start living consciously.  DO NOT put off the things that are important to you.  If you have a friend you haven’t spoken to recently, call them.  If you have always wanted to go see the Great Barrier Reef then put it on your list.  Start saving now and begin making plans to do it.  I never really thought I’d make it to forty!  Now, at forty, I’m making sure that if I do get to fifty or beyond that my list of things that I have to get done will be done.
This is one of the large driving forces behind my re-invention.  I’m going to die.  Unlike those on cruise control though, I’m very aware of this fact.  It's not a bad thing and it is a big motivator!  I’m actively working on my list of things I must get done before that occurs.
 There is another dimension to my re-invention that I just touched on in my first blog posting.  Ask yourself this, how many lives simply extinguish each and every day that you don’t know or hear about?  Roughly ~150,000 people die every day on this planet.  You might hear about a small handful of those each year (unfortunately it’s mostly celebrities).  Worse you may have known one or more of those who passed.  I don’t need to become a celebrity to be relevant but right now, if I passed, outside of my family and close friends I’d be one of those nameless 150,000.  The second part of my re-invention is to make sure that I leave some measurable fingerprint on this planet.  I am going to make a difference before I go.  This second dimension to my re-invention is me trying to find HOW I am going to make that difference.
                In my next blog entry, I’ll go more into how I am approaching some of the things I want to change that I mentioned in my first blog posting.  But before I shared my approach on change I wanted you to understand two of the driving forces behind my re-invention.  I am dying and I haven’t left my fingerprint on the planet yet.  I can't stop the first one but I can most definitely work on the second!  Embrace your mortality and live each day to its fullest.  I’ll end this blog with another quote…
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever.” –Mahatma Gandhi