| With dignified restraint, O'Kelly describes how he discovered the world around him - nature, family, friends, living in the moment - as if it were all brand-new. No more living in the future. (Or the past, for that matter - a problem for many people, although a lesser one for me.) I needed to stop living two months, a week, even a few hours ahead. Even a few minutes ahead. Sixty seconds from now is, in its way, as elusive as sixty years from now, and always will be. It is - was - exhausting to live in a world that never exists. Also kind of silly, since we happen to be blessed with such a fascinating one right here, right now. I felt that if I could learn to stay in the present moment, to be fully conscious of my surroundings, I would buy myself lots of time that had never been available to me, not in all the years I was healthy… I would soon discover, though, that staying in the present and being genuinely conscious of my surroundings were just about the hardest things I'd ever attempted. If you've ever tried to meditate - to still your mind for even a single minute - you know exactly what he's talking about. Sadly, we sometimes need a serious illness to remind us to embrace the fleeting moments of our lives. "Enjoy every sandwich," he writes. With the clock counting down, O'Kelly makes a list of his closest friends and colleagues and plans a final encounter with each one. "I stopped at each name and made myself recall, in the closest detail possible, all the moments the two of us had enjoyed together. How we met. What made us become friends in the first place. The qualities in them I particularly appreciated. The lessons I learned by knowing them. The ways in which having met him or her had made me a better person." His friends were touched - usually overwhelmed - to know how much they had meant to him. In the course of saying goodbye, he would sometimes invite a friend or an acquaintance to take a stroll in the park. This "was sometimes not only the final time we would take such a walk together," he writes, "but also the first time." Most of us promise ourselves that one day - not too long from now - we'll slow down. We'll spend more time with our family. Enjoy a lazy day out with friends. Or just take a walk alone on the seashore. Someday... If - like me - you're one of the millions who have often deluded themselves this way, O'Kelly has just three words of advice: "Move it up." Eugene O'Kelly died September 10, 2005. Good investing, Alex | 
No comments:
Post a Comment