Chip Chats | Another early Sunday morning. Coffee. Quiet. And I’m on a roll (I know that’s being way nicer to myself than many of you are thinking to yourselves!).
Death. What a shitty topic. And an even worse reality.
Unfortunately, I think about it often. It started in eighth grade when I lost my first grandparent. Bad memory in general — but I can vividly recall the circumstances around that evening and every single loss that’s touched my life since. What I don’t know is how often everyone else thinks about it.
And I’m not talking about my own death. I rarely think about that. It’s everyone else I love and everyone around me.
In the rare moments I do think about my own — a few things are always consistent.
I hope my family and friends know how incredibly much I love them. I try to say it often. I know my actions don’t always match what they deserve. But I try. And I’m trying harder.
I hope the last memory people have of me involves a smile. Maybe a laugh. Some attempt to find humor or joy in whatever moment we were in together.
And then there’s the silver lining to my own inevitable exit that, perhaps oddly, pops in my head — that I won’t have to sit with the grief of losing the people I love most. That’s the part that really scares me.
Death is everywhere. On TV, in our feeds, in our daily lives. For my friend Jennifer Bardot’s book Successful Entrepreneurs with G.R.I.T., I wrote a chapter titled “Keep Things in Perspective.” Personal and professional successes and failures. Are they worth what we make them out to be?
Like I said. Shitty topic. Worse reality.
But yesterday I talked about skeletons — about the cost of keeping the closet door shut. This is just another door worth opening.
While we’re here, while we’re alive — Let’s focus on what really matters and make sure everyone knows where we stand.
Do they?