Just one more wave

“To make a dent in the universe”….”would you live your life the same way, knowing you have one more week to live”…”stay hungry, stay curious”…By now, you should recognise those quotes.

So universally true. So simple yet profound. And worth-heeding since they came out of the mouth of our Next’s CEO. Next, next, next….that’s what your life and mine is, from one moment to the next, relentless and uncompromising.

Just like those waves that keep coming. Regardless. And no respects for anyone.

Whether you seek to blame others (for mistakes that were yours) or to claim credits (for the work of others), it doesn’t make a dent.

We exist, from one moment to the next, inadvertently build our brand: reputational currency, showing up and show biz (powder that nose, which gets longer as time goes on). Doesn’t make a dent.

Some attempts were flukes. Others hit the marks. We might inherit a loser’s streak or a winner’s portfolio, still doesn’t make a dent.

A few more weeks to live. Last week we mourned and celebrated the loss of PBS commentator, Mark Shields. The segment came across as positive and joyful, from the look of his daughter. Know when to hold, when to fold. Exit gracefully and gratefully.

Other versions of our life could be worse: covid, accident or assassination (as in Robert Kennedy whom Mark Shields worked for).

What to do when you know you don’t have much time to fool around?

• Time – limited time- dictates
• Quality in relationships, intra and inter (good with every bite, squeeze the hand that visited you, give each other plants and if possible, adopt a kid. More future, the better). Why should Fox news Murdoch get all the fun!
• Own your mistakes, past and present. make a list of negative people who dragged you down. Then burn it. Puff! Gone and forgotten. This way, we get to know our real self for the first time without the burden of self-defense
• It’s only human to deflect and defer to others e.g., circumstances, contexts and comrades (Uvalde Monday-morning quarterback shows there had been too many cooks in the kitchen). Yes, we are people of the system, but we are free agents capable of course-correction, to the minimum, like a version of an iPhone capable of downloading an update software
• write, instead of the “Art of the Start”, write the “Art of Adieu”. Sois heureuse. Avec, ce lui, qui ton coeur, a choisi. Let go. Fly out of Andrews Airforce base, and don’t look back
• When all said and done, Mark Shield’s and all the elections he covered made for a byline in history. That’s sad. Yet when building a brand, we succumb to self-delusion, a Shaman-like triumph at the Capitol Dias where minutes earlier, Mike Pence and his gavel had presided.

One thing from my expressed wish, that I would be burned to ash, is the enemy cannot piss on my grave. I already know, at a nano level, what I am made of. Dust come to dust. Vanity is what it is.

No dent in the universe. Just you and me and the wave, then next wave, until we are worn out. What’s happened happened before. Yet no one can dispute the freshness of the morning light and the scent of a flower. And wonder what we have done to deserve that.

All those blame-seeking and not owning up to our imperfect self amounts to opportunity cost and loss, occasions that could have been converted into self-improvement and advancement. Wish I had own up at every chance.

Knowing you don’t have much to live, before you turn to ash (back to the beginning), what would you do differently? Let’s put on Clapton ” Bell-bottom blues”: one more chance, another dance…