Are you where you want to be?

I was sitting with friends the other day at our local Panera, and got a phone call… One of today’s modern miracles (annoyances) is the sound of computerized music mimicking a classic rock and roll song suggesting that you might have an important phone call.

I was annoyed at myself; I had broken my own rule and made the mistake of not putting my cell phone on silent before I had sat down. I quickly pushed the button on the side of the phone that allows your voice mail to pick up the message.

There aren’t a lot of things that annoy me… but the constant beep of a missed call or a voice mail needing your attention has to be in the team photo. Again annoyed, I glanced at my phone to make sure it wasn’t a number I recognized and shut it off.

Soon after our visit was done, and saying the appropriate goodbyes I left Panera and walked to my car, all the while reaching in the side pocket of my coat to grab my phone.

I wasn’t really expecting a call today, especially one like this. You see work was covered and I had already spoken to those I cared about earlier in the day. I was just ready to go on with the rest of my day.

I checked the messages, I had received 3 – I’m not that important. Friends of mine called to inform me that one of our colleagues from my one of my privious lives had died. I can't lie. I was shocked and upset. The news had caught me off guard and I felt it in my very bones.

It turned out that my friend/acquaintance was driving home and, mid traffic, had experienced a massive heart attack that had killed him instantly. It was a huge shock to us, his friends and family because he was a fit man with no obvious ailments. Just his time I guess.

In his early fifties he was a man who loved his cars, and had earned enough in his middle age to treat himself to a particularly nice sport car, the one he had always dreamed of owning. I did have a chance to see it. It was this amazing vehicle, something out of a James Bond movie complete with the blond. He had driven it downtown last year when all of us “meatheads” had a reunion at Navy Pier. Now it was the one where he tragically spent his dying seconds.

There was little we could do, the ambulance had already taken the man to the morgue and his wife had been informed. I didn't know him that well personally, it was always a business relationship, he was from out of town, but I asked my friend to keep in touch and to let me know if there was anything I could do.

The incident had a profound effect on me. I had experienced death before of course; family and friends have passed on during my 48 years on this planet, but something about this passing, even though I did not know this lovely man that well personally, really struck a cord within me.

It was not so much the death its self, which was sad enough, rather it was the depth of understanding and insight that his wonderful wife had demonstrated on hearing the bad news. What she said changed the way I looked at my life. Despite the grief that her husband's unexpected death had brought her, she said she was strangely happy, because he was in the car he had always wanted to drive, traveling back from a course he had always wanted to attend. She was grateful, she said, because her husband was where he wanted to be when he died.

He was where he wanted to be.

How many people can say that?

How many people can say 'your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister' was where they wanted to be when they died?

I had to really think about this, very deeply. Because, if I am honest, I don't know very many people who are where they want to be while they are alive, let alone when they die.

This event has really made me think about my own life; was I where I wanted to be? Was I living to my best potential, or was I taking second best and waiting for the right time to change, a time that never seems to materialize. And was I enjoying the bounty that life had to offer, or was I waiting for some illusive rainy-day to enjoy the coffers of my labor?

Funny how a phone call forced me to take an inventory of my own life. After a few hours of thinking and to some extent grieving, it is clear that that I must clear out all the things that are redundant, and stop doing all the things that do not make my heart sing.

It has been revealing time. I can see from my self inventory - that probably 50% of my life is either baggage or redundant (including some of the people), liabilities that take more from me than they return, habits and beliefs that were past their sell-by date.

It is time to strip things back to the metal, and make myself light, and make it a point of only engaging in the things that delight me.

This is not going to happen over night. But If I start making small changes today and each and everyday forward, hopefuly I will be in a position in my life so that if tragedy strikes unexpectedly (as it is apt to do) and the reaper reapes before my liking, those I leave behind could be happy in my passing, and those I left behind could say 'yea, my dad, my brother, my husband, my son - he was where he wanted to be.'

Are you where you want to be?

Til next time....