Here’s a stop-you-in-your-tracks story that just might inspire you to put away that Blackberry and that elegantly small cell phone for a moment and really listen to the world around you, to the person right in front of you.
During his last few months before passing away from brain cancer, the former head of the accounting firm KPMG, Eugene O’Kelly wrote his memoirs, “Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life.” 53-year old O'Kelley was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer in May 2005 and died less than four months later.
In her review of O’Kelly’s book, Maggie Jackson, columnist for the Boston Globe, wrote this:
“In particular, he sought to restore to his life several qualities he had shunned as a businessman — spontaneity, patient acceptance of the uncontrollable, and an uncluttered awareness of each moment. To his surprise, this new mindset seemed to slow time down. Rather than rushing through life fixated on goals, he gained a richer perspective from savoring the present, especially uncluttered small, everyday times.”
Steve Shapiro the remarikable design process expert who wrote Goal-Free Living, shared this quote in his newsletter.
As Janet Maslin notes in The New York Times, "Mr. O'Kelly .... was a controlling, orderly, privileged and powerful man who sometimes felt like an eagle on a mountaintop. Then, to his astonishment, the mountain disappeared."
"As for those considering taking the time someday to plan their final weeks and months, three words of advice," he counseled: "Move it up." In his case, that meant trading a schedule of nonstop business appointments made months ahead of time for no clue about what each new day would bring. He had to leave his job, abandon thoughts of the future and jettison the habits of a lifetime. But he was determined to create new habits and to turn his death into one last success."
Go slow to go fast.
"Drink your tea reverently
as if it is the axis on which
the whole earth revolves
slowly, evenly, without rushing
toward the future. Only this
actual moment is life."
- Thich Nhah Hanh
