I mentioned this friend in a prior post. Liz and I became friends at TiVo many years ago. Liz, Randy and I held collaborative positions in product marketing, sales and engineering, respectively. We would meet routinely in an open space or alcove to review the things we worked on in parallel. Yet, we would have the most lively and engaging side conversations around topics entirely unrelated for our roles. I loved those exchanges dearly. I’ve since come to more consciously recognize my deeply felt need to connect with others through earnest conversation. And this was a place where the dynamic and balance between our three personalities and perspectives balanced naturally. Similar to “The Geeks” and “The Matt’s,” this was one of those dynamics that fulfilled a desire to engage, expose, examine and explore what other people thought about and why.
Liz and I became friends, she and Minh because friends with Linda and me as a couple, and Liz became a friend of Linda’s, based not just on their shared birthday, but because they were both what Linda called “girly-girls.” Finding “couple friends” with Linda was a challenging thing to do, and this was a rare instance where it “worked,” but also an example where her issues with appearances aggressively blocked my desires to continue to foster and enjoy more time with them than we did.
As I mentioned, I had sent Liz a text message after reading a post on LinkedIn about stepping out of the workforce to focus on the things she has continually planned to do “later,” after recognized that there is no certainty of “later” ever arriving and that there is no guarantee of seeing tomorrow. I sent her congratulations and a few book recommendations that inspired me over the past year. In particular, “A Year To Live.”
Hey there. There is no bad news to share, so don’t panic over my sending you a text. No good news to share either. Things are the same.
But the reason I’m texting is because I just stumbled across your “great resignation“ post on LinkedIn. I wanted to say I’m really excited for you. As you can imagine I’ve been facing some of my own “later“ considerations.
I have a few book suggestions. If you haven’t read it already, read “A Year to Live“ by Stephen Levine. If you have, shift gears and read “The Five Invitations“ by Frank Ostaseki. Third and final recommendation: “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Keep me posted. I’ll do the same. I appreciate your friendship and character. Always have.
Her subsequent response reflected on sentiments I've been struggling with and trying to find balance around this past year as well. She shared that Linda’s situation played a part in her reevaluation of her priorities, as did another friend’s battle with a life-threatening illness and some of her own health challenges as well. She and her husband, a genuine “finance guy,” have spent years of their lives focused on planning for and working towards financial security in their later years, for as long as I’ve known them, almost two decades. Yet that comes at a cost: compromising and sometimes sacrificing the present moment to gamble on that future one. She closed concerning wanting to focus on relationships more and make the most of whatever time she has.
Sound familiar?
What amount of “time” do we have in our lifetime? How do we decide on doing something “later” without any insight into when “later” is, or even if it will come at all? The “time” aspect of “lifetime” is simply unknown. And if, like Linda, my friend’s friend, and pretty much everybody under 80, if you’re finding out what your expiration date is, it’s likely soon. Too soon.
In June 2021, before engaging in the EOL facilitator training but well after Linda’s diagnosis, I drafted an unpublished post about “Bucket Lists.” I was ruminating on what my own “bucket list” would contain if given 12 months, as Linda had been given at the outset. What would I prioritize and focus on with the year I had ahead? And of that resulting list, what would ‘make the cut’ were the time cut down from 12 to 6 months? Then to 3 months? 1 month? What would I put my time and energy into if I had one month left? And taking it further, how about two weeks? What then would I keep as what matters the most for the time I have left?
This is what the book I later read and gifted to Liz, “A Year to Live,” proposes we consider, under the auspice of setting a 1-year life expectation for yourself and letting that direct your actions. Living with the hope and anticipation that we live into our 90’s, yet consciously aware that we could die before tomorrow comes. It happens every day, in the hundreds in the United States alone. According to the CDC, in 2021, an average of 474 US citizens, every day, did not live to see the next. Unlike somebody given a diagnosis, a timeline, and perhaps some hopeful mitigation or options to extend or delay their inevitable death, these 175,000+ people were likely all going about their business with no conscious consideration baked into their actions and choices that they’d be denied an opportunity to say goodbye, to resolve conflicts, to ensure their affairs were in order. Or to smell a rose, take in a sunset, savor the taste of a good steak with an even better glass of Sangiovese, gaze at their children with unlimited love and hope, or see the reflection of gratitude in the eyes of their spouse for all the years spent enduring each other’s baggage.
Living consciously aware of your mortality does not mean quitting your job and going on a peyote-fueled vision quest into the Mojave desert. Walking away from ensuring you have the means to attend to your needs and responsibilities would be ignorant and short-sighted (unless you get that diagnosis and a timetable). However, taking the top 5 regrets of the dying to heart, maybe that extra hour of work isn’t more important than making time to have dinner with family and friends. Possibly “killing” precious time binge-watching something that does nothing to enrich your relationships, including the one with yourself, could be used for more rewarding endeavors with higher returns on your investment. Maybe getting over feeling too awkward to honestly express your feelings will be as satisfying and inspiring for others as it will for you.
In the end, you’ve got nothing to lose.