DOÑA KEATING
Management Consultant, Leadership
Strategist, Speaker & Author
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On the Day I Die: a powerful reminder from John Pavlovitz

5/17/2016

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This dropped in my inbox a week or so ago. Enjoy - DK
On the Day I Die
February 29, 2016 / John Pavlovitz


On the die I day a lot will happen.
A lot will change.
The world will be busy.
On the day I die, all the important appointments I made will be left unattended.
The many plans I had yet to complete will remain forever undone.
The calendar that ruled so many of my days will now be irrelevant to me.
All the material things I so chased and guarded and treasured will be left in the hands of others to care for or to discard.
The words of my critics which so burdened me will cease to sting or capture anymore. They will be unable to touch me.
The arguments I believed I’d won here will not serve me or bring me any satisfaction or solace.   
All my noisy incoming notifications and texts and calls will go unanswered. Their great urgency will be quieted.
My many nagging regrets will all be resigned to the past, where they should have always been anyway.
Every superficial worry about my body that I ever labored over; about my waistline or hairline or frown lines, will fade away.
My carefully crafted image, the one I worked so hard to shape for others here, will be left to them to complete anyway.
The sterling reputation I once struggled so greatly to maintain will be of little concern for me anymore.
All the small and large anxieties that stole sleep from me each night will be rendered powerless.
The deep and towering mysteries about life and death that so consumed my mind will finally be clarified in a way that they could never be before while I lived.
These things will certainly all be true on the day that I die.


Yet for as much as will happen on that day, one more thing that will happen.
On the day I die, the few people who really know and truly love me will grieve deeply.
They will feel a void.
They will feel cheated.
They will not feel ready.
They will feel as though a part of them has died as well.
And on that day, more than anything in the world they will want more time with me.
I know this from those I love and grieve over.
And so knowing this, while I am still alive I’ll try to remember that my time with them is finite and fleeting and so very precious—and I’ll do my best not to waste a second of it.
I’ll try not to squander a priceless moment worrying about all the other things that will happen on the day I die, because many of those things are either not my concern or beyond my control.
Friends, those other things have an insidious way of keeping you from living even as you live; vying for your attention, competing for your affections.
They rob you of the joy of this unrepeatable, uncontainable, ever-evaporating Now with those who love you and want only to share it with you.
Don’t miss the chance to dance with them while you can.

It’s easy to waste so much daylight in the days before you die.
Don’t let your life be stolen every day by all that you’ve been led to believe matters, because on the day you die, the fact is that much of it simply won’t.
Yes, you and I will die one day.
But before that day comes: let us live.


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Human Dignity and the Value of Life

11/15/2013

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There is so much news coming at us on a regular basis, whether about the devastation in the Philippines, or a senseless crime against innocents. Sometimes it's easier to tune out, or absorb the horror but attempt a quick psychological exit so as to not become too overwhelmed.

Last week, I traveled to Los Angeles on business. Because of the tragic shooting and killing of a TSA agent only a day before,  our morning flight was canceled. After finally being booked for late afternoon departure, we were then delayed three times, eventually leaving Seattle around 7p.


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Once we landed, the reminder of what had occurred on November 1 hit us immediately, as brilliant 100-ft lighted pylons lit the night in hounour of TSA Officer Gerardo Hernandez. Passengers disembarked from the plane and quietly walked through Terminal 3 to meet loved ones, retrieve baggage, or grab transportation to their ultimate destination.

When we returned to the same terminal for our flight back to Seattle, we again solemnly took in this scene, as well as the makeshift memorial just inside the terminal doors.  There was a moment where I wanted to take a photo of it with my smartphone, but it somehow felt too intrusive, too trite. With a heavy heart, we walked past a female TSA agent standing nearby. Our eyes locked and immediately watered. She quietly nodded, as I took the escalator up to the gate. The poignant reminder was that of a loved one who left home for work that day and never returned, a fear many of us carry daily.

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It was disturbing to read in today's news that Hernandez lay bleeding for 33 minutes without medical attention whilst paramedics stood ready to assist a mere 150 feet away. When authorities finally went to his aid after helping other wounded victims, an airport police officer thought he detected a light pulse and immediately wheeled Hernandez out to paramedics. Killed a week before his 40th birthday, this was someone's father, husband, son, and friend. I can't shake the feeling that he deserved better, and might have survived if he was seen as a human being and life worth saving versus collateral from the scene of a shooting. I shudder to think if that had been my husband -- alone, thinking about us, and taking stock of his life as his final moments faded away.

May you rest in peace, Gerardo.

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