Enjoy Life Before It’s Too Late
By
on
April 30th, 2007
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There are some phone calls you never want to receive. The worst would be hearing your child involved in an accident. Second worst would be hearing about a close relative involved in a disaster. Last night we got a strange call from my wife's best friend who lives in our building. She asked to drop off her daughter, my sons favorite friend, for a few hours because of an emergency. Turns out her husbands brother had suddenly died in an accident.
Having kids has changed my behavior in these situations dramatically. The first thing I do after reading or hearing about someone dying is finding out about children. Any children involved? Young? Old? While reading about some diseased person in the papers, I always read the last lines first to find out if there were any young kids in the family. My only explanation for this is I can imagine how terrible it would be to split up a family through a disaster.
There were two young kids in this family. Nice kids, I've met them both. The circumstances of the death are still very vague but kind of irrelevant.
Many years ago I was not good at enjoying the day or thinking about how I one day would be old and unable to do many of the things I do today. My wife and kids have helped me a lot in this area and so has 9/11. I saw the buildings from my window and even though I didn't panic or get shocked, the event did have an impact on me. The simple message was we never know what will happen tomorrow. That's why it's so important to do many things early in life. To enjoy life and not postpone everything until tomorrow or next year.
I don't want to be 60 or 70 years old and unable to play tennis, golf, or travel around the world. I might feel great at that age or I might be dead. That's why I try to do as many of these things today.
It's good to be reminded about this every now and then. I do think people are getting better at this. But it's still common to hear people postponing important things indefinitely. "I don't travel now but when I retire I will see the world", "I work a lot now but I will spend time with the children later", "I'm obese but in a few years I'll get in shape", "I don't have time for hobbies now but will when I retire in 15 years". This is stuff I hear all the time. It's unfortunate thinking that might lead to disaster.
Dying is always sad but if you live life to the fullest it feels a little less of a tragedy. Rotting away at work, not seeing the kids, and then dying seem like a terrible waste to me.
A couple of years ago, I wanted to go to this outdoor excursion badly. It was my last year of undergrad. The excursion conflicted with my econometrics class. I was wondering out loud to my professor about this dilemma and he said, 2 years from now, are you going to remember the class or this excursion.
I went! I don’t remember much of my econometrics class but boy! was it a treat to see a beaver swimming in the river while on a canoe ride. :)
So now, when I’m in a dilemma, I try and put it in the same perspective.
Sorry about your friend’s death. Hope everything turns out as best as it can be.
Sorry about your friend’s loss. Always sad to hear when their are kids involved. I am really trying hard to lose weight — I think I should try harder so that I can be around a lot longer and spend them with my son.