Focusing on Things that Matter

I just rode the fastest roller coaster in the world. At 240 kilometers per hour with a G-force of 4.8g, the 1 minute 32 second ride seemed like less than 10 seconds from start to finish. I will leave out the finer details of how it felt like so as not to spoil the experience of future riders.

The speed of the Formula Rossa coaster perhaps felt like how 2017 went by for many of us. Over before it even started. This certainly seems true for me. I probably just spent the busiest year of my career, and it flew so fast that it is about to end in a few hours. While enjoying what is left of the holidays, many of us are likely caught in the process of assessing whether we spent our time on things that really matter this past year.

A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to participate in a course on wellness. The facilitator discussed and shared at length about the many benefits of overall physical, spiritual, mental and emotional well-being to both our personal and professional life.

If I was being honest to myself, I would say that while I was most immersed in my career this year,  I was also the most idle in terms of taking care of the other aspects of my overall well-being. I suddenly realize that as the course facilitator shared, I may be one of the many corporate warriors who may not be able to finish the race well if I don’t re-adjust certain aspects of my life and focus more on things that really matter.

Just today I read an article about a 24-year old dying of cancer who shared his regrets about not living his life meaningfully. This sure made me remember three important things. Firstly, how we should try our best to live each day in a meaningful and sustainable way. Second, that we should take care of our relationships as this is the key to true happiness. And lastly, that we should always endeavor to do good while we spend our lives in this temporal world.

So how did 2017 go for you? I hope you use the lessons learned this year to make 2018 much more meaningful when you look back and reflect come December 31st.