?????? n 2007, I read the book, "Younger Next Year- Live Strong, Fit and Sexy Until Your 80 and Beyond." The book was written by Chris Crowley, and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.. The book was an interesting read and offered some sage advice. I r…
n 2007, I read the book, "Younger Next Year- Live Strong, Fit and Sexy Until Your 80 and Beyond." The book was written by Chris Crowley, and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.. The book was an interesting read and offered some sage advice. I recommended the book to my friend Kevin Karschnik. He immediately purchased the book.
Though I don't know it with certainty, Kevin probably read it cover to cover in one setting in an attempt to absorb all of the information and subsequently manage his time to implement all of the suggested steps.
After reading the book and making some lifestyle changes, Kevin reached out to the author to substantiate that the book changed his life. He didn't scan the book for helpful suggestions, but hung on to every word and used it as a road map for going forward. He didn't cut any corners. He didn't pick and choose what he wanted to pay attention to or not. He wanted to do it all.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to ascertain that the book impacted Kevin very differently than it did me. I take more of a cafeteria plan approach. I'll do that, but I don't need to do that, that or that. Under any circumstance, I never choose to eat liver and I may skip a vegetable or two in order to enjoy desert. In lots of areas, I'm good with a cafeteria plan. That concept if foreign to the more responsible way Kevin lives.
On Saturday, when Kevin shared with me some of the things he's devoted time to over the past several months, I was amazed. For starters, he enrolled in a 12-week course related to death. Who but Kevin would research the best sources of information and prepare himself to have a better understanding of death?
Kevin and his mother were very close. As 2022, came to a close, the prognosis from his mother's doctor didn't offer much hope. Kevin's mother was terminally ill and living on borrowed time.
All of that left him uncomfortable with his sense of lack of knowledge. He wanted to know more. His logic was sound. Why not take advantage of available information that he might find beneficial, but didn't have?
If I'm not mistaken, the group met online every week. On every other Tuesday, the larger group could include people from anywhere in the world. On alternate Tuesdays, the group was limited to five people for discussion purposes.
In the course, each person is required to write their own obituary. In addition, they are provided information about legal issues that need resolution while the person is still living. Things like DNR orders, Medical Power of Attorney, Wills, etc.
The course included required reading and Kevin found multiple take aways for both books. "One book was entitled "Chasing Daylight – How My Forthcoming Death transformed my life." It was on the New York Best Seller list. "Chasing Daylight is the honest, touching, and ultimately inspiring memoir of KPMG CEO Eugene O'Kelly, completed in the three-and-a-half months between his diagnosis with brain cancer and his death in September 2005. It's haunting yet extraordinarily hopeful voice reminds us to embrace the fragile, fleeting moments of our lives – the brief time we have with our family, our friends and even ourselves."
The second book: "A Year To Live", by Stephen Levine identifies how to live this year as if were your last. "In A Year to Live, Stephen Levine, author of the perennial best seller Who Dies?, teaches us how to live each moment, each hour , each day mindfully – as if it were all that was left. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to practice dying as the highest form of wisdom. Levine decided to live this way himself for a whole year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our view of the world and forces us to examine our priorities.
"Most of us go to extraordinary lengths to ignore, laugh off, or deny our grief over the fact that we are going to die, but preparing for death is one of the most rational and rewarding acts of a lifetime. It is an exercise that gives us the opportunity to deal with unfinished business and enter into a new and vibrant relationship with life. Levine provide us with a year-long program of intensely practical strategies and guided meditations to help with this work, so that whenever the ultimate moment does arrive for each of us, we will not feel that it has come too soon."
The 12-week course is entitled Let's Chat About Death with Eileen Spillane. You can find information at Befriending Death.com
Kevin would probably say that the course has also transformed his life. He is thoughtfully and prayerfully inventorying the totality of his life and asking himself what if anything he should have done differently? He's exploring any avenues of unfinished business and living with the sense that every hour matters.
I am grateful to have a friend like Kevin who doesn't fly by the seat of his pants, but thoughtfully and purposefully explores how to get the information needed to make the best possible decisions.
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