It's been said that the only inevitable things in life (perhaps aside from change) are death and taxes.
I spent longer than was comfortable wrestling with my inadequate record keeping, Quicken and Excel trying to get my business tax information organized so we can file earlier rather than later. If you are one of those people who file the short form and have only a single W2, I sure hope you are counting that as one of your blessings. It is amazing to me that everybody has to do can be so important and so challenging.
Of course, they told me that about giving birth. "How hard can it be? Everybody does it!"
Dying is like that too.
I just finished reading Chasing Daylight by Eugene O'Kelly.
Last June, the very month I got my Stage I breast cancer diagnosis, he got a "late stage, inoperable, brain cancer" diagnosis.
Maybe it's the fact he spent his working life as an account. (My co-survivor friend Tamara is a trained CPA, too.) He identified the challenges, made a plan, and focused. And made for himself and his family, a good death.
It's a brief read. His only regret was having been less than committed to having balance between his family and career. He forgives himself and changes direction. He practices living in the NOW. He arranges closure with distant but significant friends and those closest and most important to him, including his 14 year old daughter. He leaves an improved corporate committment to balance in the lives of employees, a testimonial to his affection for his family, and recommendations to the rest of us. (The procedes of the book's sales are going to a foundation for cancer patients who don't have money to pay for good care.)
Be brave. Be kind to your loved ones and yourself. Think about your life and your leaving. Do it sooner than you think is "necessary." You'll be glad to have given yourself a head start.
The contrast between Mr.O'Kelly's example and that of the many CEO's and big-wigs currently in the news, including the ones under indictment in Houston and Washington, D.C. could not be greater. No less tragic, but so much more instructive..
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