I’m taking a class called “Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life”. There’s a book with that title as well, and it’s very good.
Our assignment for this week:
What would you do if you had 6 months to live?
What would you do if you had 30 years to live?
Post your response to this assignment. I’d like to read it.
It would make a big difference if the 6 month time frame was six months of agonizing pain and not being able to feed yourself or take care of yourself, or if it was 6 months of feeling great and then dropping dead.
With only six months to live, I’d cash in my 401k and spend most of it on a 6-month supply of pharmaceuticals, scotch and nubile, 18-year-old hookers. I’d probably waste the rest, but I’d save out enough to purchase a collection of automatic weapons and pay a final visit to the corporate offices of a health insurance company.
But it would be just my luck that as soon as I did all that, someone would find a cure for whatever I had.
With 6 months: I would quit my job, travel, run up big credit card bills, catch all my favorite performers in concert one last time, and get a really nice car and drive all over without worrying about the cost of gas.
With 30 years, which I concievibly have - it would make me 83: I will start collecting from my IRAs at age 59-1/2, starting withdrawing from the one company that has pestered me the most over the years, then moving on to the others that have not bugged me. Retire and start collecting social security at age 62. Collect my pension from the phone company as soon as I can - I think I have to wait until I’m 65 but I’ll check on that when I get close to 60. Get a nice car. Travel to Hawaii, Florida, Branson; go back and see the bases I lived on as a child and see if my old houses are still there; Greenfield Village in Michigan; the Smithsonian Museum; watch a space shuttle launch and/or landing; go to England and see where my grandparents came from; Ireland and see all the places I’ve heard the songs about; Scotland and Wales just because I would be close - I’d really like to visit that resort in Wales where they filmed the old TV show The Prisioner. Australia. New Zealand. (I’m going to be one broke old lady! 
) See a Broadway musical. See my favorite performers as many times as I can. Walk along as many warm ocean beaches as I can. Go on a cruise and spend the extra money for a room where I’m less likely to get seasick. Really learn how to play the whistle and maybe guitar. Buy any new technological toy that strikes my fancy. Ignore people who make me upset and hang out with people who make me feel good. Move someplace where the winters are not so cold and snowy - although I’m going to be traveling most of the time, so maybe I can just leave when the weather gets bad and follow the sun. Basically, I want to spend the rest of my life doing what I want to do when I want to do it the way I want to do it.
This is not in the spirit of the academic exercise, however, a friend of mine was given that death sentence. Dan was diagnosed with advanced melanoma, that had metastasized throughout his body. The doctors told him that he probably had three months, maybe six at the most and that he should get his affairs in order.
What Dan did was get better, doing what he could in terms of treatment, and taking care of himself and never giving up. Today he is in full remission and the doctors can’t explain his recovery. Yes, I understand that most people that get the death sentence, don’t get the miracle, but, understand that a diagnosis, a prognosis is an opinion, nothing more, and you’ll have a better chance at beating the long odds if you fight for it.
As to how to live life: Be kind. Find a song to sing, a tune to play, walk with a spring in your step and joy in my heart. Forgive myself. Forgive others. Be generous with my time and energy. Spend time with people that enjoy my company, and whose company I enjoy.
There is that Buddhist cliche of chop wood, carry water, that even in the simplest, most mundane tasks, a person can be mindful and be connected with spirit. I believe that this extends to the most complex and demanding of tasks as well, that a person can find that sweet spot in time and be connected. One minister I know uses the term “practicing the presence,” meaning the presence of God. Whether it be washing dishes, driving in traffic, talking to a child or an adult, watching a sunset, a person can choose to practice the presence, and be mindful of the moment.
Some folks think they have to feed the homeless or campaign for world peace to be of service. Hogwash. I believe in giving where I can, when I can. The 10% ancient tradition is a good place to start, giving 10% of time, 10% of money. Almost everyone except the severely ill or completely disabled can find a way to give.
Many live their lives like the proverbial Scrooge, asking “are there no poor houses,” believe that it is someone else that will take care of the problems. And many of them die, like the proverbial Marley, with a long link of greed soaked chains tied to their soul, still making excuses as to why they have nothing to give even into the afterlife and there is nothing left to spend their earthly riches on.
I have been thinking a bit on this kind of topic with the untimely death of a local police officer Randy Simmons
(http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_8204174)
By many accounts, the man was a proverbial living saint, a cop’s cop, SWAT team leader, an ordained minister who spent most of his free time with poor city kids, even after he had bought the nice house on the hill and moved out of the 'hood. Most of us don’t measure up to this idealized standard. However, almost all have opportunities to give, to serve, and most of all to be kind.
I’d do exactly what I’m doing now. Either question.
I’m 52. Thirty years to live would have me popping my clogs at Eighty-two, which is about the age my parents died. This is pretty much what I expect, and so I fall into the second category of the question.
I’m as happy doing what I do now, and can’t imagine anything really making me happier. Finding a song to sing, or a tune to whistle, and chopping water and hewing wood, in Bill’s terms.
when my dad was diagnosed with cancer (mind, this was 22 years ago…) he was told either they got it all, or he had 12 months to 2 years to live. If it did mastisize, it would kill him very quickly when it reoccurred. He was 68 at the time.
He basically didn’t do anything differently than he had up to that time. He spent the time doing “odd jobs” for friends and relatives, the same thing he had been doing since retirement at age 65. The next summer, he built a 40 X 40 foot deck for a neighbor, and started mapping out plans to put a outside basement door in the house I was living in.
His cancer was rediagnosed on Labor Day weekend (first weekend in September) and he died October 8th. The last 4 weeks were hell, and if there was anything i wish I could have done it would have been to spare him that.
I was 4 1/2 months pregnant with Nate when dad died. He did get to see the ultrasound pictures and kiddingly said “he’s got my ears”. Poor kid WAS born with dad’s ears (they stuck out).
Oh Death, where is thy sting?
With 6 months to live I would send an email to my boss at 7am over breakfast telling him, with profuse apologies, that I was coming in to collect my things and quit. Then I would do that. (I have some nice maps at work I think I would like to have for my last 6 months of life.)
Then I would spend my days having coffee in the morning at my favorite spot, playing my instruments, going to the session, taking art or whatever interesting classes, taking walks, going on hikes, probably go see the Carrizo Plains wild flowers one last time, go for a backpack trip if I can find a spot that didn’t burn up last summer, ride my bikes with my friends, maybe volunteer to plant and care for trees, go see the monarch butterflies one last time if it’s the right time of year, take a road trip to Death Valley and US 395.
With 30 years, sadly I think I would continue to grit my teeth through my tedious job until I can’t stand it anymore, then find another job to bore me to death until the next, until the next…dreaming always of what it would be like if I didn’t have to spend so much of my day doing it.
But what if I chose to live as if I had only 6 months even if I have 30 years? What’s the worst that could happen? Homelessness?
Not being alcoholic or mentally ill, I could probably actually do homelessness well, even happily. I could spend my last $2000 for a camper on my pick-up truck, go get some jobs as campground hosts, sign up for food stamps, sit in the sun and strum my dulcimer and play my flutes and whistles and watch birds and sunrises and sunsets in beautiful places. Not so bad, eh?
So how come I grit my teeth all day then?
I do have only six months to live. We all do.
You never know what’s going to happen to you. Live as though you’re going to die not six months from now, but tomorrow.
You recall the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon
where Calvin says:
‘I live each day if though it were my last.
That way I have nothing to regret.
Inspiring, isn’t it?’
The last panel has Hobbes looking
puzzled and remarking:
‘It might be, if you were someone else…’
Calvin is sitting on the floor eating cookies,
reading comics,
and saying to Hobbes:
‘Pass me that issue of Captain Napalm, will ya?’
But if I had only 6 months to live, I would completely cease this daily struggle for income.
When I was 9 years old my grandfather died. My whole family wasn’t a bit surprised. Everybody in his family died around his age, about 55 years.
I took note and started making adjustments to my lifestyle at the age of 9.
Over the years I earned a name as a wacko health nut in my family as I floated from diet to diet, exercise plan to exercise plan.
If something wasn’t working for me, I tried to recognise it and make changes.
I’ve got an older brother who started having health problems in his 50s. My mother was so sure he’d die at 55 like all the people on my father’s side of the family did (until they discovered how serious pharmaceuticals and massive surgical intervention could do to prolong their life).
Here’s the really REALLY funny part of the story.
There’ a mess of Dr.s down in Texas that are using my family in their research about this particular health adventure. They use genetic testing to diagnose the disorder and then watch our demise. (They’d agreed to give me medical advice but its always been stuff I’d long past tried and found it didn’t work.)
My sickly older brother tested negative. Apparently the seriousness of his health problems (that resemble the illness of my father’s family’s) are lifestyle produced.
I (the wacko health nut) tested positive. The Dr.s at the research center can’t figure out why I’m not very ill.
I’ve tried to tell them what I’m doing but they just blink their eyes and smile at me like I’m an idiot.
While my brother is now taking the modern versions of the pharmaceuticals my father had to take and has massive surgical intervention always looming in the close future, I’m just going about my merry “health nut” way.
On my mother’s side of the family my grandmother lived to 105.
The story she tells is that she’s been sickly all her life and learned if she didn’t pay attention she’d be in pain.
It’s my guess that was the secret to her long life, paying attention.
I hope paying attention continues to work for me. (I also hope that doesn’t sound too arrogant.). At the present my death is about a 1 1/2 year past due.
Another way to phrase the question is what do you want your life to look like in six months or 30 years? This can be a powerful exercise. Some gather photo images and build a collage of what that life looks like.
I can share a couple of more less inspiring stories (vs. Dan’s miracle recovery) of people and their final days. A friend had a young relative, mid-twenties, terminally diagnosed. That young person took a trip from Scotland to California, to see the giant redwoods, and Yosemite park before dying. He died close to “schedule.”
Another friend had a niece late 20s, terminally diagnosed. Unfortunately, during the later days the young woman was bedridden. Family and friends spent time with her, and she could do some small scale craft projects. Much time was spent with doctors and in hospitals. She did last longer than expected, but also passed, though not in great pain. The young woman wasn’t upset with her situation. The extended family was much more distressed than she was.
I think of a third friend who in her late 50s was diagnosed with a mysterious ailment. When the diagnosis came down, it hit like a load of bricks. There was a slow decline and loss of function, and mental capacity. From diagnosis to death it was about 18 months. Again, lots of time with family, lots of time with doctors and in hospitals holding on to a shard of hope.
It is easier to be glib when writing an academic paper. When a real life diagnosis comes, most don’t quit their jobs, because that is how they have their health insurance, because quitting means no more doctors, no more hospitals, and for many, no more hope of recovery.
But what if your last 6 months were not involved with an illness. What if you just knew 6 months from now was your last day. Would it change anything if those last 6 months were completely healthy?
My wife & I have based our whole financial plan on the Mayan calendar and the world ending in 2012. We’re playing it cool for now but once we get close enough to 2012 and have enough to meet the no money down minimal monthly payments, we’re going for it. We’re talking houseboat with a grand piano and no telephone.
Two points to Jim for the Calvin and Hobbes reference.
I miss them so. Comics have essentially died. Except Berked Breathed draws on Sundays.
I’ll think more on the original question.
pastorkeith