Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five interconnected sites.
Randy Pausch wrote The Last Lecture to help his three very young children know, when they got old enough to wonder, what he valued in life. He had to write it before he died. He didn’t know when he would die, only that it would be soon.
Last July, two years after reading Randy’s book, I shot a short video with a challenge for you. Now, three years after Randy’s unfortunate death, his message is even more important.
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Some of our favorite vacation memories are things we least expected to happen.
Like what happened last night at this blog, during a casual bedtime conversation.
Or maybe it’s a story from someone you just met, like Joe, at the resort swimming pool where the kids were playing.
Twenty years ago, Joe’s Mom had anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks to live. Joe, now 47, was at her bedside, crying like a baby.
She asked him why he was crying, and he told her he was sad that she was going to die very soon.
She then asked him to stop crying, go for a walk, and then return to her bedside. She insisted that his walk include the halls of the Hospital’s third floor.
When Joe returned, his Mom made him promise to not cry for her anymore. “I’ve had 53 years and a great life.”
His Mom was a very wise woman.
Joe understood this after walking the halls as his mother had instructed.
She knew full well the third floor was the pediatric cancer ward.
Are you ready to die? Most don’t like to think about it. Ever wonder why this is so?
Two weeks ago on a flight to Allentown, Pennsylvania, I asked the woman (70-ish) next to me about death and dying. Long story, but it was neither awkward nor inappropriate.
The woman said she was not afraid of death. She told me “her life story” but added at the end, she was afraid of two things:
While visiting Family in Allentown, I asked some direct questions. The answers were fuzzy, meaning I left with no more insight than when I arrived.
Do you have any earthly idea when your funeral will be held?
Are you comfortable with your own mortality?
Does death and dying scare you?
These are questions most people in midlife try to avoid. One of the benefits from a midlife crisis is that it’s a friendly reminder that the clock is ticking and there is still time to transform.
Yesterday, on one of the Delta legs to get home from Massachusetts where I gave a few speeches, I had a conversation with a younger man, maybe 30.
He said I had a fatalistic life view. Not knowing exactly what fatalistic meant, and being caught off guard a bit by his evaluation, I waited until I could check the definition.
He was incorrect.
Why? I’ll tell you tomorrow.
“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” — Unknown
That would be a life full of Joy, don’t you think?
Have a joy – filled day. Carpe diem.