When people ask me why I don’t drink, I feel as if they’re looking for a story of tragedy. One where I ended up in a hospital or jail, a relationship being torn apart at the hands of alcohol. Upon reflection, this has already happened many times in my life. Some experiences have been at my hand, others I have witnessed. So, I tell them that drinking is too costly. That there is too much to be done to afford it.

I went from reading Hindsight to Unfinished Business. The first was an academic view at retrospect and its place in our lives. The latter a number of stories about loose ends tied up by a successful man who turned fifty-five, lost his job, and realized that too many things had been put aside over the years.

While reading Hindsight and thinking about Good, I was in a period where I was reevaluating the focus of my time. At some point I articulated to myself, or perhaps to someone else out loud, that I’ve long thought about what people would say about me at my death. As I thought more about this, I realized it was a vehicle for introspection regarding my own character, as if through a mirror.

Heartbreak of last year lead to a turning point in the fall of redefining goals. It is overwhelming to try to grasp time anymore. Ultimately, I think that is a sign of success. Hindsight got me thinking about this mirror. My notes have lead to this summary: Good is a direction you can go, not a place that you can be. Thus, I’ve begun to think more about this example of retrospect as a compass that one uses not to get somewhere in particular but to live.

I took today off work as I’m headed to San Jose tonight for the Velocity conference and I have a few important things to get done before I leave. I slept poorly and I woke this morning uneasy with heavy thoughts on my heart, and decided to read for a while first. From Unfinished Business:

From reading his book, I knew that Tony liked to challenge his students at the start of each year by saying, “All of us are going to die — some sooner, some later. After you die, what would you like people to say about you? Your answer to that question,” he’d tell them, “should guide the way you live.”

I’m reading two books that are coming to similar ends, but they are written in completely different formats. Granted, it is a interesting culmination to see these writings and my thoughts converge.

In closing, a quote of Lee Kravitz from Unfinished Business: “As good as my life looked on paper, it was sorely lacking in the one area that puts flesh on meaning: human connectedness.”