Having recently crossed the starting line of my own Puckett Year, I find myself now contemplating the fact that I am, without doubt, one year closer to death. As they say, the only inevitable things in life are death and taxes. In the last post, Adam eloquently commented on the preciousness of life. None of us knows how much time we are blessed to have on this earth, we only know that with each passing birthday, we are assuredly getting closer to that final inning. It's not always festive to contemplate your own mortality on or around your birthday, but it is a helpful reminder that your time is finite and you won't always have a chance to say, "we'll see you all tomorrow night."
Encounters with death or seemingly imminent mortality, either our own, or that of a loved one can also provide a poignant opportunity to take stock of our own life. Within the past few months, two personal instances have brought the reality of death to a fresher state in my mind; a visit to see my 95 year-old Grandma whose health has been deteriorating rather rapidly over the past few years and my Dad informing us that he'll be going in for surgery to remove some cancerous tumors from his prostate. It can be these moments that help re-orient us to what truly matters. A quote that I recently came across surmised at "how interesting it is that men seldom find the true value of life until they are faced with death." Or as country-singer Tim McGraw puts it, "someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying."
One of my favorite movies examining life philosophy, and one I watched at least 20 times in college, is the cult classic "Fight Club". Undoubtedly one of my favorite scenes from the film is the "Human Sacrifice". Upon being saved from seemingly imminent death, Tyler Durdin remarks that the following day will be "the most beautiful day in Raymond K. Hassel's life". We then see that Tyler's gun contained no bullets, leaving us to assume he never intended to kill Raymond. I've often pondered the possibility of creating an LLC that would stage these near death experiences for people's loved ones, or themselves if they were twisted enough. I've thought of how we could all occasionally benefit from having a gun pointed at the back of our head asking what we'd wish we would have done before we died, and then being given the chance to go do it. I'm certain there are numerous legal and ethical issues with a business of that nature.
One class that all of us Johnnies had to take during our first year was a class entitled "Skills for Healthy Living". It was a one credit class, meaning it met once a week and required minimal work. It was unanimously despised by the freshmen class because it was A. mandatory and B. the only class where there were no female counterparts - which was one of the driving factors for attending any class in the first place. I recall that our instructor (I won't even go as far as to call him a professor, since I'm pretty certain he was an assistant coach of some sport and just taught the class to supplement his meager assistant coaches salary) discussed Stephen Covey's well-renowned self-help book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey's second habit, and one that I vividly remember our instructor discussing, was the idea to "begin with the end in mind". The notion that if we contemplate what we want to become, or in theory, how we want to be remembered, we'll be more likely to achieve those goals. That concept is portrayed in the assignment given to Tom Cruise's character of writing your own obituary in the movie "Cocktail", a film I last watched on a dubbed-from-TV-VHS tape with a few other contributors to the Puckett Project^.
Had I been more mindful of the idea of beginning with the end in mind, it may have deterred me from a few (or numerous) suspect things I did during those four years at college (and likely beyond). But fortunately, or unfortunately pending your viewpoint, we don't necessarily get to choose how we will be remembered. Our project namesake is a perfect example of this. Many remember Kirby Puckett for his on field accolades and the way he played the game. Some remember him for his sudden retirement and unpleasant post-retirement antics. Most certainly the way he had to end his career, and the suddenness of his death were not how Kirby would have wanted to go out. If Hall of Fame baseball players don't get a say in the matter, I can't imagine fate will be any kinder to the rest of us. We can only hope that when our obituaries are written, the writers will have some mercy on us, highlighting "nothing but the hits" and omitting the experimental stuff that likely flopped.
If I had to write an obituary for any of the other contributors to this project, I'd have some pretty incredible things to say. Thankfully that task has not presented itself yet, nor do I hope it does anytime in the near future, as I'm certain each of them will have great "obit material" in the many years to come. As Matt poignantly articulated in his post, "the content of our character and the connections that we make will leave an impression on others," and the contributors to this project have all left lasting impressions on me. When we consider what others might write about us in our own obituary, it can provide some needed inspiration to do those amazing things we've long dreamed of. Reaching our mid-thirties, and in theory having a good chunk of life left on the statistical average, the end shouldn't be near. But there is no escaping the fact that "on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." The end may not seem near, but it is here if we want to use it to motivate us to live a fuller life. As Adam succinctly put it in his post, you have to "live your live", no one else is going to do it for you. It's also your only life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
^There is a slight chance we actually watched "Risky Business", but it was most certainly a Tom Cruise film and it was definitely taped from a TV broadcast.
