Sobering thoughts this morning to make haste while one may . . .
1) For my morning pages I remembered an old news clipping Mother had in the kitchen — which I now have in my study — about a train that got snowed in on the prairie overnight, and the nearby farmhouse to which almost everyone trekked in the morning for pancakes and coffee. Turns out the farmer’s wife and her visiting sisters were all cousins of my great-grandfather. I always thought it would make a good children’s story . . . but it’s fallen behind the stove from the back burner, you might say.
2) Moving into the parlor for devotional, I picked up Steven Petrow’s new book Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old (which I want to review for Etiquetteer anyway). The next chapter was “I Won’t Postpone for Tomorrow What Matters to Me Today,” which included the alarming statistic that men who retire at 55 are 90% more likely to die in the following decade that those who retire at 65. Guess how old I was when I left MIT. That’s right, 55!
2a) Petrow also talked about his visit to Deathclock.com to calculate the anticipated day of his death . . . which was sooner than he expected. My first result indicated that I should have died in 2016! Turns out attitude makes a big difference. If I was really “pessimistic,” I’d’ve died in 2016; if “sadistic,” in 2000. With a “normal” mode, my anticipated date of death was calculated at Friday, August 8, 2036. If “optimistic,” that would have been 2052, but my reaction to that was “Who wants to live that long?!”
2b) If I accept this result, at least I make my 50th high school reunion, which would be absolutely worth it.
3) So . . . so Daddy needs to press on with what matters with a greater sense of urgency.
