Perspective

Posted on 29. Sep, 2008 by jon in Community, eduFire News

The Dow dropped 777 points. The sky is falling. Oh my gosh, what are we going to do…this is so important!!

Pardon my French…

Bullshit.

I just found out that one of our students has Stage IV lung cancer. That’s real. I guarantee you that she’s not super-concerned about whether the market was up or down today. When you’re faced with the very real possibility that you might not live that much longer the not-so-important stuff tends to fall away.

Steve Jobs said it really well:

All external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

My greatest wish for myself and for everyone else is that we always remember to give meaning to the meaningful things. And while I’ll let our student remain anonymous, if we could all send a little positive energy her way tonight that would be completely awesome.

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  • Nice post Jon!

    It's always good to have that attitude.
  • Jon,

    Thank you so much for sharing this. Yes, it does put things in perspective.

    And to our eduFire tutor and anyone else who needs it - I'm sending lots of positive energy!

    Sandra
  • Susan
    Jon,

    Thank you.

    Susan
  • amen.
  • This is a really good thing to keep in mind Jon. All else pales in comparison. I tend not to think too much about 'the meaning of life', rather I think it's better to 'create meaning in life'. Do stuff that is meaningful, build stuff that is meaningful, have meaningful relationships with people.

    Living as though you could die at any moment is a real wake up call, and is a philosophy shared by many a peaceful warrior. I first read about when studying the Japanese code of the warrior, Bushido. Life comes into focus at the end of a six foot razor sharp blade.

    Sending those positive vibes out there.
  • This is a very touching post. Thank you!

    At my work, recession/stock market/layoffs have been the central topic for our water cooler conversations. I can sense their are a lot of anxiety and stress.

    We just had a new baby. I have to say that it really helped put things into perspective. No matter how bad the stock market is, we still have family, kids, friends, health, etc. -- those are much more important than the stock price.

    Thanks for reminding us to putting things into perspective. Great post.
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