Sunday, December 25, 2016

Chapter 5 - A Sense of Urgency

Life is short, youth is finite. With every breath we take, we come closer to our inevitable end.  Thus, time is our most precious resource. We cannot control time, yet we control how we spend it. Most of us invest a great deal of time in building our life, earning a living, acquiring assets and securing a future. We invest time making money, but money cannot buy back the time invested in it. Our children will never be children again, our parents will not be around forever, and who knows when our time will come. Time does not wait for us to wake up and appreciate it. It rushes by. For the most part of my life, this was not my way of thinking.
As a young man death and aging did not bother me. With plenty of years ahead, old age was too far to be noticed. My interpretation of ‘living the moment’ was to make the most of the cards that life dealt me, to be productive and do whatever was necessary to succeed. I was busy, one thing followed another. I had no reason to stop and ponder over life.
Then, at 32 I felt a twitch in my left eye and noticed my eyesight became blurred in the evenings.  I assumed it was related to my working late hours in inadequate office conditions. After a few days without improvement, I scheduled an appointment with the local eye doctor. The ophthalmologist looked through my pupil and thought my optical nerve seemed swollen. He concluded that I may have a brain tumor and that I should go straight to hospital. Needless to say, it came as a great shock.
I spent the next two weeks hospitalized in the neurological department, going through every imaginable test, some invasive and risky such as lumbar puncture. The doctors speculated but could not find a diagnosis. Only when my parents intervened and asked for a friend’s second opinion it became clear - I was farsighted. Natural aging simply exposed a common condition I was born with. I just needed glasses.
It was a daunting lesson about the imperfections of the medical system, but more important, I began to recognize that age was catching up with me. A few years later, cholesterol popped up. Gradually strands of grey hairs became apparent, and I noticed wrinkles subtly accumulating around my eyes and forehead. Here I was, gazing at the aging man in the mirror, wondering how fast the years flew by. Still feeling young and wishing I could be forever young, but no longer able to deny my time was ticking away.
So, by the time I entered my 40s, my perception of life has matured. It was no longer infinite, and perhaps no longer taken for granted. Time became precious and I began to pay attention to how I spent it. I looked at my relationships,  my free time, my well-being and quality of life as a whole. Was I living the life I wanted? If everything was possible, would I still choose to live this way?

Many of the people who transformed their life, attribute the trigger to some compelling event such as evading a fatal accident, overcoming a deadly disease, or losing a loved one. Such events change one's perception of life and add a sense of urgency – to consider what is really important and to pursue it. Do I need to experience a compelling event to get going? Why not learn from others?
I would like to share with you the story of Alice Lok Cahana, which had a profound influence on my journey:

"Alice Cahana, an artist living in Huston, has a painful and vivid memory of her journey to Auschwitz as a fifteen-year-old girl. On the way, she became separated from her parents and found herself in charge of her little eight-year-old brother. When the boxcar arrived, she looked down and saw that the boy was missing a shoe. “Why are you so stupid!” she shouted at him, the way older sisters are inclined to do. “Can’t you keep track of your things?” This was nothing out of the ordinary except those were the last words that passed between them, for they were herded into different cars and she never saw him again.

Nearly half a century later, Alice Cahana is still living by a distinction that was conceived in that maelstrom. She vowed not to say anything that could not stand as the last thing she ever said."

Source: "The Art of Possibility", by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. (New York: Penguin Books, 2000, page 174)

Alice’s story inspired me to question, “If I knew today was the last day of my life, would I still live it the way I do?” Answer was clearly NO. “And if I knew I had a few more years to go, would it change my answer?” I reflected upon my relationships with family, friends and colleagues and asked myself, “Was I content with my current relationships? If a relationship was to terminate abruptly, would I be content with what I left behind?”  


How well did I know my son, and how close were we? How much time was I spending with Yael (my spouse)? How well do we know and care for each other? How does my son experience me as a father? How does Yael experience me as a partner? Am I present? And what about my parents, brothers and sister?


Clearly my focus was elsewhere. I was preoccupied with my work, spending most of the day at the office. I firefighted my way through the week, and the weeks flew by. Any attempt to slow down and take a breath was in contradiction to the belief that executives should be fully committed to the firm and that success required sacrifice. Life was measured by efficiency, utilization and profits. I was aware and discouraged by it, but I kept going, perhaps on the premise that it will change for the better in the future.


Before I was CEO I may have hoped that as CEO I would be able to change things. I believed I would be in control of my time, set my priorities and enjoy financial security. But here I was, CEO, and none of the fantasies materialized. I was working harder than ever, and I could easily be fired by whim of a boss. I did not own the business, I did not call the shots, yet it completely dominated my life.

My fears of change, as grave as they were, were secondary to my fear of carrying on like this for years to come. I was burning my most precious resource - time. Looking forward and assuming I might work until 67 meant I had another 25 years to go. So, potentially, I had more career years ahead of me than behind me. I could start all over again! I had a window of opportunity to take a shot at a new life, but that window would not stay open for long.

When I’m old and facing the final curtain I want to look back with satisfaction, like Frank Sinatra singing, “I did it my way”. I do not want to look back with regret, knowing I had the opportunity to make a difference, but was too afraid to take it. Transformation became a matter of urgency.







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