"My third story is about death. At the age of 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it were the last, one day you will end up being right. "She stayed in my memory, and during the 33 years that have since passed, I looked in the mirror each morning wondering" if today was my last day, I do I'm going to do today? "If the answer is no for several days, I know I need to change something.
Keep in mind that I would die soon is what I found more radical to help me make important decisions. Because almost everything - what is expected of others, our pride, our fear of failure - gives way to death. Are only the basics. Never forget that death will come one day is the best way to avoid the missteps of believing that we have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow his heart.
About a year ago, it was discovered that I had cancer. At 7am, the scanner showed that I was suffering from a pancreatic tumor. I did not even know what a pancreas! The doctors informed me that it was probably a type of incurable cancer, and that I had only three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and put my affairs in order - a euphemism for "prepare to die." This means having to tell his children a few months all that we thought we could tell them over the next decade.
This means trying to make things easier for your family. In short, to say goodbye. I carried this diagnosis all day. Later in the afternoon, I was a biopsy, an endoscope inserted into the throat through the stomach and intestine to stick a needle into the pancreas. I was unconscious, but my wife, who was present, told me that in examining the samples under a microscope the doctors started to cry because I had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer cured by surgery.
I was operated on and, fortunately, I'm fine now. This was my closest contact with death, and I hope that this will happen for another few decades.After this experience, I can say with more certainty than when death was to me a vague intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even those who want to go to heaven do not want to die to get there. However, death is our common destiny.
No one has ever escaped. It's for the better, because death is probably the best invention of life. It removes the old to make way for new. Right now, you represent the new, but one day you will become old, and you leave room for others. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's true. Your time is limited, do not waste it by living the life of another. Do not be trapped by dogma, which require them to live in obedience to the thought of another. Do not let the noise of the outside stifle your inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and your instinct. The both already know what you really want to be.
Everything else is secondary. In my youth there was an extraordinary publication, The Whole Earth Catalog, one of the bibles of my generation. It was founded by a Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he had led his poetic vein. It was in the late 1960s, before computers and desktop publishing. It was made entirely with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was a sort of Google in paperback format, 35 years before the birth of Google.
An idealistic book, teeming with recipes and great ideas. Stewart and his team have published several copies of the Whole Earth Catalog. When they had exhausted the springs of the formula, they published a final issue. It was the mid-70s, and I was your age. The back cover showed a picture of a country road in the early morning, the kind of roads on which you could make the stop if you were adventurous. "Be insatiable. Be crazy. "It was their farewell message. ' Insatiable. Be crazy. It is a vow that I have always made for me. Today, when you receive your diploma that marks the beginning of a new life is what I wish.
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