I’ve heard it said that most people spend more time planning a vacation than they do designing their lives. I’m guessing that is particularly relevant as we get older. Sure we might plan for retirement, but once we get there, then what? And I don’t know about you, but have you noticed that if you just let one day follow the other without any particular intention, the next thing you notice is that a week, month or year has gone by and not much has changed? Of course we all have a good excuse with the pandemic. And while things are looking more optimistic on that front, we aren’t completely out of the woods yet either. So while I’m all for going with the flow and not fighting what we can’t change, this morning during a podcast interview I heard something that struck me as very important—and that was the habit of reviewing and reflecting on our lives on a regular basis. After all, if we saying personal growth, life-long learning and other core values are important to us, don’t we owe it to ourselves to at least reflect and review on where we are—especially if there is a simple way to do that? [Read more…]
My Current Story of Living, Dying and Everything In Between
My older sister Ann and I.
Most of the time I write about ideas that arise in my mind from books, podcasts or conversations. While I cover some of my personal perceptions, I also do my best to share other views to add depth to the conversation. This time is different. This time the largest thing on my mind is the fact that my older sister Ann is dying. And while I realize that talking about death can be difficult, and in some cases even repellent, my goal is to write about it in a way that reminds us all that the experience of death is something we share. Run from it or not, eventually death will touch us all. Sometimes the SMARTest thing any of us can do is stop, look it in the eye, uncover the story we believe about it—then explore ways that may benefit us as we live out the remainder of our life. [Read more…]