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One of my work colleagues passed away last Friday, the result of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. She was just diagnosed a few years ago, and progressed rapidly. If I had it, I would want it to progress rapidly. She had to stop teaching about a year ago when she could no longer drive herself to work. She loved teaching. She was only in her early 50s.
I got the news via a text message in the middle of post conference with my students. One of them was describing some patient scenario, and all of a sudden I had tears streaming down my face. I had to tell the studentit wasn't their compelling patient story that evoked them. They all knew who my colleague was--the snack cart we put out was in her honor, and now in her memory.
Someone else I know died last week as well. Cancer. Just a few years older than me.
I was thinking about all this, along with learning of the deaths of my two old Air Force buddies recently, as I was struggling to rewrite my doctoral project proposal. The thought came into my head, "I don't want to spend a single minute more of my life on this." And I felt the truth of it in my heart. I'm not going to continue. I'm done.
I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing things that I love and bring me joy and fulfillment. It might be big things, or it might just be sitting in a room listening to music I love and reading a book. I'm going to pay more attention to my marriage and my wife, my health, and my well-being. Not necessarily in that order.
So, that's that. I have a bunch of cool stuff to write about, but I'll save it for tomorrow.
The view from here, on my walk this evening. It brought me joy.
I got the news via a text message in the middle of post conference with my students. One of them was describing some patient scenario, and all of a sudden I had tears streaming down my face. I had to tell the studentit wasn't their compelling patient story that evoked them. They all knew who my colleague was--the snack cart we put out was in her honor, and now in her memory.
Someone else I know died last week as well. Cancer. Just a few years older than me.
I was thinking about all this, along with learning of the deaths of my two old Air Force buddies recently, as I was struggling to rewrite my doctoral project proposal. The thought came into my head, "I don't want to spend a single minute more of my life on this." And I felt the truth of it in my heart. I'm not going to continue. I'm done.
I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing things that I love and bring me joy and fulfillment. It might be big things, or it might just be sitting in a room listening to music I love and reading a book. I'm going to pay more attention to my marriage and my wife, my health, and my well-being. Not necessarily in that order.
So, that's that. I have a bunch of cool stuff to write about, but I'll save it for tomorrow.
The view from here, on my walk this evening. It brought me joy.
