Loss of Delusion

Neither of my parents lived to see the age of 50.

My father was 33 when he died.

My mother was 49 when she died.

They both left us suddenly, with no warning at all.

My father's death was my inspiration not to take my mother for granted. And then my mother's death was my inspiration not to take my SELF and my own life for granted.

I was 23 years old, reckoning with the question: If I have only 50 years on this planet, how do I want to spend them? From that perspective, I was already nearly halfway through my life.

I made huge changes to the way I was living, some of which had already been underway. They all integrated fully in the wake of that second all-consuming grief.

That tectonic shift toward greater integrity is the foundation of who I am today, the soul of who I intend to be for the rest of my life, however long that shall be.

The thing I truly lost in all of this is the ability to live in delusion. My parents were guaranteed to die, someday. But if it hadn’t happened early, I might have lived more of my life deluded by “certainty.”

I lost the conviction I might know what will happen, how long I will have with any of my loved ones.

I lost the ability to count on the future, and that left me no choice but to invest in the moment, in my ability to be at peace in the moment, in my commitment to treat my loved ones well in each moment.

The foundation of my work is this—my time with my loved ones is finite. Our moments are countable, but their number is unknowable.

My way of being is a way of curating these countable moments to my satisfaction here and now.

Life is short, but it is also long. When I have a Way of devoting to the present moment, I can be satisfied that I’m spending preciously limited time according to what I value, and that I’m building a legacy which will serve me and the world for the long-haul.

Whether my personal life is short or long, relative to the lives of other humans, I experience it as potent and dense. I live out my value system to have all the satisfaction available, right here, right now.