BL&T 322: Priorities & The Time We Have

Borrowed

“Death, family crisis, and newborns—the end of a life, trying to keep a life, and welcoming in a new one—these are three things that will shake your floor, give you clarity, remind you of your mortality, and hence, give you courage to live harder, stronger, and truer. Three things that make you ask yourself, ‘What matters?’ Three things that make you realize, ‘It all does.’”

From "Greenlights" by Matthew McConaughey [Book]

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“This space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live,” lamented Seneca, the Roman philosopher, in a letter known today under the title On the Shortness of Life.

From “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman [Book]

Learned & Thought

I was in the ER with Mylo on Halloween night. Luckily, the little dude still got to trick-or-treat as Lightning McQueen and had a blast.

But a couple of hours after falling asleep, he woke up screaming and wheezing. We’d been at urgent care earlier in the day, and he seemed to be doing okay. He’s had breathing issues before, but it had been a long time since his last one. Thankfully, we got home Sunday afternoon, and he was feeling good as the week began. I, however, was exhausted.

It’s amazing how quickly moments like this reprioritize your life. Before he woke up, my mind was on getting some sleep, blowing leaves off our wooded property the next day, grocery shopping, and, in the evening, getting a head start on work. Once he woke up, none of those plans mattered.

On Monday, I learned that tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson had been killed in a plane crash in Florida along with his wife, Helen, their two young kids, their nanny, and two friends. They were on their way to the Bahamas.

Adam founded Retention.com, RB2B, and more recently, MoltSets. He built in public on LinkedIn, posting almost daily to 160k+ followers about his experiences. I never met him, but I enjoyed his content and appreciated his openness. The comment section on any of his posts felt more like a community: people praising his ideas, challenging him, and interacting with one another. It’s still hard to believe he’s gone.

I’m sharing all of this because moments like the night with Mylo are eye-opening. The things I didn’t get to that weekend still needed to happen. But when you can cast them all aside that quickly, it makes you realize how little some of the things that seem so important matter in the grand scheme.

Then, just a couple of days later, hearing about Adam added a different layer. Time goes by quickly, and we don’t know how long we have.

So in the end, I simply try to learn from these moments. I sit with these ideas and think about my life. Am I spending my time in the places that matter most? Is how I’m spending my days leaving me enough to show up as the person I want to be? Am I putting off things I want to do because I’m assuming there will be time later?