PE Chronicles: Would you do anything differently if you knew you only had a year to live?

The Worst Year Ever. TIME magazine has a drawing of a red “X” over 2020 on its cover with a heading which many will agree with. From the time it has started, the pandemic has killed millions of people across the globe. It has changed everyone’s lives completely.

We may not say it, but deep down we act and behave like we’re invincible. That stuff happens to other people, not to ME. I have plenty of time left. We forget how light our grip on life really is.

I urge you to give serious thought to the question posed in this publication heading. I guarantee your priorities will come sharply into focus if you do. We all need reminders of what’s really important from time to time.

Death doesn’t make life pointless, but rather purposeful. Our fear of death shapes our decisions, our outlook and our actions.

Is the ladder you’re climbing up leaning against the right wall? Make the most of living life instead of mostly living with regrets. I can’t remember a single person who was ever completely satisfied with their work/life balance.

Too many of us tend to believe the hype that age defines and limits our potential. Science suggests that the best path to sustaining physical and intellectual achievement is to never hit a stop sign. The research showed that when people are afflicted with arthritis, they tend to move less, because movement is painful. But movement actually helps ease the pain.

Why should we ever think about retiring, when we could be “rewiring”? Retirement is another cultural idea that may lead people to give up career and life goals years before they might actually want to stop working. The fact is, retirement was not created because older people were incapable of doing good work, but rather, it was invented by a 19th century German chancellor in response to rising Marxism in Europe, because young people wanted their jobs at a time when there were not enough jobs to go around.

Furthermore, older workers are not less productive. Researchers at the University of Mannheim in Germany looked at teams of workers at a BMW plant. Productivity increased right up until the mandatory retirement of 65, because these veterans knew how to handle problems and prevent mistakes.

Be a (re)inventor. My definition of retirement is doing what you want to do. Loving what you do can make you more productive, sociable and innovative. That kind of enjoyment can help fuel the grit needed to help us persevere when we face the inevitable challenge.

The great law of nature is that trials and tribulations never stop. There is no end. Just when you think you’ve successfully navigated one obstacle, another emerges. As the Haitian proverb puts it: behind mountains are more mountains.

There are always more obstacles, bigger challenges. You’re always fighting uphill. Get used to it and train accordingly. Knowing life is a marathon, not a sprint is important. Understand that each battle is only one of many. More important, you must keep them all in real perspective.

Never rattled. Always hustling and acting with creativity. Simply flipping the obstacles that life throws at you by improving in spite of them, because of them. People will make pointed remarks. They will cut us off in traffic. Our rivals will steal our business. We will be hurt. Forces will try to hold us back. Bad stuff will happen.

We can turn even this to our advantage. Always.

It is an opportunity. Always.

Forgiving you means I no longer dwell on what an asshole you are. It doesn’t mean you’re no longer an asshole.

What stood in the way became the way. Not everyone looks at obstacles – often the same ones you and I face – and sees reason to despair. In fact, some see a problem with a ready solution. Leaning into their problem or weakness or issue, they see a chance to test and improve themselves.

Nothing stands in their way. Rather, everything guides them on the way. It is much better to be this way, isn’t it? There is a lightness and a flexibility to this approach that seem very different from how we - and most people – choose to live. With our disappointments and resentments and frustrations.

To be sure, no one is saying you’ve got to do it all at once. Margaret Thatcher didn’t become known as the Iron Lady until she was sixty years old.

So under that pressure and trial we get better – become better people, leaders and thinkers. Because those trials and pressures will inevitably come. And they won’t stop coming. Like Rockefeller, you’re cool under pressure, immune to insults and abuse. You see opportunity in the darkest of places.

You are iron-spined and possess a great and powerful will. Like Lincoln, you realise that life is a trial. It will not be easy, but you are prepared to give it everything you have regardless, ready to endure, persevere and inspire others. The names of countless others escape me, but they overcame what life threw at them and in fact, thrived because of it.

They were nothing special, nothing that we are not just as capable of being. What they did was simple (simple, not easy). But let’s say it to remind ourselves:

See things for what they are.

Do what we can.

Endure and bear what we must.

What blocked the path now is the path.